The documentary uses, develops, and challenges conventions of real media products in the following ways: 1) It adheres to typical documentary codes and conventions like a serious tone, inclusion of opinionated and condemnatory aspects, and factual information. 2) It replicates theories of documentary modes from scholars like Bill Nichols - particularly employing the expository mode with an authoritative voiceover. 3) Aspects of genres like public affairs, cinema verite, and actuality documentary styles are also employed to engage audiences and present the topic realistically. 4) While it incorporates techniques from several modes, the documentary challenges conventions by avoiding styles that did not suit its topic, like the poetic or participatory

1. Evaluation-Question 1
“In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?”
Throughout the production of my documentary I have
predominantly adhered to the codes and conventions of a the
typical documentary stylistic devices as well as key theories to
interest and target my audience.
Poonam Parmar

2. “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”
The Brief
To create an opening 5 minute TV documentary.
• Two ancillary tasks; a radio trailer and a TV Listings magazine for a listings magazine
to support the main product-the documentary.
The Purpose
• Both ancillary texts were to encourage and to entertain backed up by factual
information.
The Audience
• Mid teenagers (16years) to adults (30’s)
Contradictive
Light-hearted
Serious
Critical/ Uncritical
Documentary’s
have many
categories here are a few.
Debatable
Opinionated
Statistical
Condemnatory

3. “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”
•
The documentary that we created had aspects of
serious, opinionated, condemnatory & factual information throughout the opening
five minutes. This is important for a documentary, as it sets the atmosphere for the
viewer with what type of documentary they are about to watch.
Research & Planning
•
In order for our documentary to be professional we had to make ensure research &
planning was accurate, this meant looking at theorists.
TheoriesBill Nicholls’ theory of Documentary Modes (2001)
We as a group began to study Nicholl’s different types of documentaries and
which one would best be utlised within our very own.
Poetic, participatory, performative, reflexive & observational. After completing
our documentary it is evident that these modes apply throughout, however the
expository mode is the most suitable when addressing Social Networking
patterns. The ‘voice of god authoritative voiceover’ attracts the viewers
directly engaging them into the documentary and presents them for a lot of
rhetorical reasons.

4. “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”
Theories
Public affairs, Cinema Verite & Actuality
•
Public affairs documentaries such as panorama look into what is
happening between the people, the polemical occurrence that
we have tried to draw attention to - we have applied this theory
within our documentary.
•
Cinema Verite expresses that the filmmakers opinions should be
expressed so we have looked at our own Social Networking
patterns and have applied this knowledge within our
documentary.
•
Johnson Grierson’s Theory of actuality is something we tried to
replicate; the places and the people being as realistic as possible
to make it look inartificial and be represented as it is.
However, as our documentary is time bound it will be mediated
and re-represented for our target audience.

5. “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”
Poetic Mode- has a subjective style of documentary - in
comparison to the expositional mode (which is very
objective) with continuity editing; it uses symbols &
associations in time. It puts a tone of being
leading, which we wanted to avoid, as our topic is very
subjective being factual and staying professional.
The participatory and performative modes- very
similar styles, as they openly discuss personal opinions
and a clear message is put across to the audience. The
performative is very much autobiographical
account, which almost follows the film maker’s life
around- this engages the film maker and the audience as
it takes them through the experience making it more
effective. In our documentary of Social networking this
would not be suitable as it’s not relevant to the subject
matter.
Alternatively, to gain an insight into documentaries ideas
we looked at for example SuperSize Me
which is great example of this. Morgan Spurlock appears
in his own work shown to the viewers, it is very personal
and more about the film maker and their intentions.
Click the hyperlink to
take you on to the trailer.

6. “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?”
The observational mode follows the subject
around, and has a very ‘fly-on-the-wall’ style to
it, which simply observes the life, lived with minimum
intervention. Our documentary had elements of
observing students and the general public- however an
observational documentary does not tend to use any
voiceover or music throughout their piece
which, rejected the convention of this mode.
We looked at many different observational
documentaries such as; airline, child genius and teen
species which we analysed in our research stages.
The reflexive mode- looks at the constructed nature
and sometimes illustrates the filmmakers fighting with
the content of their findings; it can also be skeptical of
the idea of ‘realism’ captured on film. We didn’t use
this within our documentary however in the future this
may have been a good theory to follow.
Overall- The differences were emphasised but also
certain conventions & techniques were presented
which allowed me to incorporate them throughout our
documentary which gave it an overall positive outcome
to the consistent theme and structure.