Documentaries construct a particular version of reality through film techniques used to position viewers to respond in specific ways. They mediate meaning by providing an interpretation of the subject between the viewer. Documentaries aim to record, reveal, persuade, analyze or express while entertaining, educating, informing or persuading audiences. Viewers expect content to be grounded in the real world presented objectively. Documentaries can be categorized into expository, interactive, observational, and reflexive modes using styles like travel, diary, fly-on-the-wall, docu-soaps, and investigative forms with values of educating, illuminating issues empathetically, and social/political criticism or analysis.

1. Documentary
A trailer by Megan Fulham

2. What is a documentary?
• Documentaries do not present us with real life,
instead they construct a particular version of the
real world;
• Documentaries use specific film techniques to
inform, convince and persuade, as a means to
position viewers to respond in specific ways;
• Documentaries mediate meaning; they stand
between the subject and the viewer, providing
some version or interpretation of this subject
(hence mediating meaning).

3. Documentary as a genre
• A documentary is type of film which creates, through the use of
certain conventions, the illusion that the events are not controlled
by the filmmakers.
• Social functions of documentary :
– To record, reveal, or preserve;
– To persuade or promote
– To analyse or interrogate
– To express
• General aims of documentary (there are many more specific aims)
– to entertain
– to educate
– to persuade
– to inform

4. Audiences expectations
• What we see and hear is grounded, in some
way, in the real world;
• The notion of objectivity, impartiality, fairness
in representation;
• That the audience wants to learn something

5. Modes of documentaries
It is possible to divide documentary, itself a genre, into sub-genres or
categories. It is argued that there are so many different types of documentary
that we cannot classify them all clearly. Below is a broad list. See the
following link for more details :
• Expository documentary : uses a narrator (voice of authority) to address audience,
explaining and interpreting "the reality" of what is being presented.
• Interactive - the presence of the documentarist (documentary maker) is
represented in the film; selection of material is foregrounded.
• Observational - fly-on-wall; creates impression of events unfolding naturally in
front of camera. (Eg : docu-soap like British TV show "Airport", following groups of
airport workers through a 24 hour day.)
• Reflexive - the process is as much about making a documentary as about the
subject of the documentary. (Bowling for Columbine). Camera and crew are
acknowledged, sometimes even part of the action (NB Columbine).
• Docu-drama: Dramatic reconstruction of real-life events using actors or original
participants.; fictionalised facts.

6. Forms and styles of documentaries
• Travel / adventure
• Diacritic form (like a diary)
• Fly-on-the-wall (camera as observer)
• Docu-soaps
• Investigative
• Docu-drama
• Personal
• Propaganda

7. Values of documentaries
• Educative;
• Illuminative (shedding light on a topic or
issue);
• Empathetic (engaging us emotionally with a
subject);
• Social and political functions (criticising,
analysing, satirising).