Documentary in a Multiplatform Context Inge Ejbye Sørensen To cite this version: Inge Ejbye Sørensen. Documentary in a Multiplatform Context. Art and art history. University of Copenhagen. Faculty of Humanities, 2013. English. tel-00797160 HAL Id: tel-00797160 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00797160 Submitted on 5 Mar 2013 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. FACULTY OF HUMANITIE S UNIVERSITY OF COPENH AGEN Ph.D. thesis Inge Ejbye Sørensen Documentary in a Multiplatform Context Academic advisor: Professor Ib Bondebjerg Submitted: 04/12/12 Institutnavn: Institute for Film and Media Name of department: Department of Media, Cognition and Communication Author: Inge Ejbye Sørensen Titel og evt. undertitel: Documentary in a Multiplatform Context Title / Subtitle: Documentary in a Multiplatform Context Subject description: Documentary in a Multiplatform Context Academic advisor: Ib Bondebjerg Submitted: 4th December 2012 Grade: Lorem ipsum in eternum 2 All the articles here are printed with written permission from publishers and editors: Article 1: Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing. The Impact of Online Funding and Distribution on the Documentary Film Industry in the UK. In Media, Culture & Society 34(6) (2012) 726– 743. Article 2: Channels as Content Curators. Multiplatform Strategies for Documentary Film and Factual Content in British Public Service Broadcasting. (In review). Article 3: Newsjacking the Media: Video Ambushing and AV Astroturfing. In Howley, K. (Ed.) (forthcoming 2013) Media Interventions. London: Peter Lang. Article 4: Documentary at Play. Paper presented at the conference New Documentary Formats, the Department of Film & Media, Copenhagen University. March 30th 2012. (Article co-written with Anne Mette Thorhauge.) 3 Acknowledgements This Ph.D. project was carried out at the department of Media, Cognition and Communication at Copenhagen University and funded through a scholarship from FMKJ. I would like to thank all my colleagues from these institutions and organisations for their help, comments and feedback on the project along the way. First and foremost I would like to give a huge and warm thanks to my supervisor Professor Ib Bondebjerg, without whom this project simply would not have happened. I am deeply grateful for his support, encouragement and wisdom throughout the development and the writing of this thesis. Thank you, Ib, for contributing to, expanding on, and inspiring my research interests, and for making this process productive and pleasurable. A warm thank also to Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen for reading through the sections that deal with the methodology and research design of this project. I have been involved in many networks, collaborations and projects and have been grateful for the inspiring sessions, courses and symposiums at Kulturens Medialisering, Creative Industries, Media Monday and FMKJ. I would like to thank Professor Anne Jerslev for involving me in the organisation of the symposium Looking for Reality – Looking at Reality, and to Professor Ib Bondebjerg and Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen for including me in the writing of Clips – En Medie analyse. I am deeply grateful to the interviewees who spared me their time and thoughts and thus provided the raw material for this thesis. Also I would like to thank the editors of Kosmorama, Media Culture & Society, and seminar.net and the anthologies, Media Interventions and Digital Ethos who gave me the opportunity to publish in their journals and anthologies. A massive thanks to the many anonymous peer reviewers whose comments and suggestions have so improved, sharpened and matured my writing, thinking and publishing. I hope that one day you will make yourself known so I can thank you in person. A big thanks to Anne Mette Thorhauge the co-writer of one of the articles in this thesis, as well as my co-editors at of the journal, Audiovisual Thinking, Sanna Martilla, Oranit Klein Shagir, Petri Kola and Thommy Eriksson. I would also like to thank the advisory broad who backed up the journal: Professor William Urrichio, Professor Lily Diaz, Professor John T. Caldwell, Senior Lecturer Paul Kerr and Professor Ib Bondebjerg. I am very grateful to Graeme Burnett, David Griffith and Cynan Jones for help with transcriptions, as well as for proofing and offering suggestions to how to improve my Dangelsk. I am likewise indebted to Erik Schwägermann who brought back my Endnote library when I thought all was lost. I would like to thank Lisbeth Frølunde, Kirsten Simonsen, Cecilie Givskov, Esther Wellejus and Marie Louise Muff for good discussions and places to stay. Also a warm and loving thanks to my other friends and family, especially my parents, Kai and Kirsten Sørensen, siblings Erik, Kiki and Anni and nephews Rasmus, Emil and Malte. Most of all I am infinitely grateful for and to my husband and daughters, David, Billie and Ava Griffith. Your support, patience and sense of humour made this project possible. 4 Contents INTRODUCTION - DOCUMENTARY IN A MULTIPLATFORM WORLD 9 Analytical focus - Why, when and where 11 Why documentary? 11 Time frame 12 Geographical orientation 13 PART 1 - THE PROBLEM OF NOW AND THE NEED FOR A VARIETY OF APPROACHES 15 1 The structure 17 2 Thinking about multiplatform content and contexts 20 Literature overview 21 (Multiplatform) television theory and production studies 21 Documentary theory 24 Digitisation and the multiplatform mediascape 27 New channels, platforms, production technology, distribution and funding forms 27 Technology, creativity and industry in the networked world 29 Institutions in the multiplatform mediascape - broadcasting brands and brands broadcasting 31 The TV networks in the UK 32 Public Service Television networks - BBC and Channel 4 32 Commissioning statistics, structures and strategies of the UK networks 33 Changes to commissioning structure of the BBC and Channel 4 34 Public service media, IPTV and VOD 35 Policies and power of public service media 38 Privately owned and commercially funded TV and IPTV 39 Cable, Sky, Freeview and IPTV 39 Social network sites 40 Social Media 40 Online video sharing platforms 41 The social and commercial values of audiovisual content on the internet 43 The wealth of networks 43 Participatory culture as business plan 45 Second shift aesthetics 47 Second shift aesthetics in action - Transmedia storytelling, 360, verticals and two-screen programming 48 Participatory culture as business plan 51 Documentary on multiple platforms 52 Multiplatform documentary content, its users and uses 53 Documentary viewers, viewsers, users, produsers, prosumers, players, receivers, gamers and audiences 53 Multiplatform and interactive documentaries 55 Digital documentary aesthetics 58 New forms and expressions, old genres 60 Knowledge mediated through games and alternative reality games (ARGs) 61 The democratic potential of digital documentary 62 Note on digital divides 63 5 Deliberation on theoretical framework 64 3 Research design - Methods and methodologies 65 Documentary films as case studies 67 Methods of industry-level studies 68 Directives and reports from public bodies 68 Trade and industry publications 68 Quantitative data - statistics and viewing figures 68 Qualitative data 69 Interviews, statements at industry events and quotes in press 69 Interviews with the documentary industry professionals 69 Interviews - the questions 70 Research sample - the interviewees 70 Ethical considerations and consent 71 Deliberation on Methods and Methodological choices 72 Generalisation or external validity of sample 72 Construct validity 74 Reliability 75 Reliability of others 75 Discourse analysis in production studies 75 Reliability of self 77 Participant-observation and observational participants - industry access, knowledge and know how 78 Concluding remarks on research design 79 PART 2 – THE ARTICLES 80 Article 1 Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing. The Impact of Online Funding and Distribution on the Documentary Film Industry in the UK 81 Abstract 81 Keywords 81 Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing. The Impact of Online Funding and Distribution on the Documentary Film Industry in the UK 82 Structure and method 83 Theories and practices 84 Benkler and Bourdieu 85 Documentary budgets in decline? 86 Crowdsourcing and outsourcing 91 Distribution 91 Production funding 92 Crowdfunding 93 Crowd investment 93 Perspectives on online funding and distribution 94 Editorial control and rights to the film 94 Crowdsourcing as community building and promotion 95 Online financing: a certain kind of documentary 97 The broadcasters - Outsourcing production and risk 98 Conclusion 99 Cited interviews 100 References 100 Article 2 Channels as Content Curators. Multiplatform Strategies for Documentary Film and Factual Content in British Public Service Broadcasting 103 6 Keywords 103 Introduction 104 Methods and rationale 105 From commissioners and creators of programmes to curators of content 106 New documentary portals and players online 108 TV channels and their multiplatform theories and strategies 110 Channel 4 – meeting