Discourses of Power and Representation in British Broadcasting Corporation Documentary Practices: 1999-2013 Item Type Thesis Authors Thornton, Karen D. Rights <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by- nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. Download date 26/09/2021 08:12:14 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10454/18364 DISCOURSES OF POWER AND REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION DOCUMENTARY PRACTICES: 1999-2013 KAREN DEBORAH THORNTON Ph.D UNIVERSITY OF BRADFORD 2018 Abstract Karen Deborah Thornton Discourses of Power and Representation in British Broadcasting Corporation Documentary Practices: 1999-2013 Keywords: Documentary; Television; Spectacle; BBC; Remediation; Representation; Reality; Power Abstract This dissertation re-evaluates the ways in which contemporary television documentary practices engage their audience. Bringing together historical frameworks, and using them to analyse a range of examples not considered together within this context previously, the main finding is that the use of spectacle to engage the audience into a visceral response cuts across all of the examples analysed, regardless of the subject matter being explored. Drawing on a media archaeological approach, the dissertation draws parallels with the way in which pre-cinema engaged an audience where the primary point of engagement came from the image itself, rather than a narrative. Within a documentary context, which is generally understood as a genre which is there to educate or inform an audience, the primacy of spectacle calls for a re-evaluation of the form and function of documentary itself. Are twenty-first century documentary practices manufacturing an emotional connection to engage the audience over attempting to persuade with reasoning and logic? The answer contained within this dissertation is that they are. i Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................. i Table of Contents ................................................................................. ii Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 The History of Documentary Practices ................................ 25 Photography ............................................................................... 25 Film ............................................................................................ 34 Television ................................................................................... 44 Conclusion ................................................................................. 51 Chapter 2 Theoretical Frameworks ...................................................... 54 Discourses of power and representation ................................... 57 The philosophy of ‘reality’ .......................................................... 72 Modes of documentary practice ................................................ 76 Spectacle ................................................................................... 88 Remediation .............................................................................. 103 Chapter 3 Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) ............................................ 111 Traditional codes and conventions ............................................ 112 Overview of contemporary generic forms .................................. 117 The impact of technology .......................................................... 121 New natural history: The Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) phenomenon .............................................................................. 124 Deconstructing the dinosaur ...................................................... 129 Deconstructing the construction: The Making of ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ (1999) documentary ................................................. 138 ii The role of the Walking with Dinosaur (1999) website ............... 144 Public Service Broadcasting or presumptuous folly? ................. 148 Conclusion ................................................................................. 153 Chapter 4 Steve Leonard’s Ultimate Killers (2001) ............................... 155 The spectacle of nature ............................................................. 158 Documentary and celebrity ........................................................ 164 Educating entertainment? .......................................................... 173 Conclusion ................................................................................. 177 Chapter 5 ONE Life (2003) ................................................................... 179 ONE life (2003) series thematics ............................................... 182 ONE life (2003) series one opening sequence .......................... 194 Lager, Mum and Me (2003) ....................................................... 202 Education, information or entertainment? .................................. 206 Conclusion ................................................................................. 211 Chapter 6 The Secret Life of The Shop (2005) ..................................... 214 (Mock) documentary practices ................................................... 216 The Secret Life of The Shop (2005) ........................................... 225 Public Service Broadcasting and the remediation of reality ....... 246 Conclusion ................................................................................. 252 Chapter 7 Rain in My Heart (2006) ....................................................... 256 Auteur exploitation? ................................................................... 259 The spectacular body ................................................................. 279 But is it education? ..................................................................... 293 Conclusion ................................................................................. 299 Chapter 8 People Like Us (2013) ......................................................... 301 iii The neoliberal agenda and representation of poverty ............... 303 People Like Us (2013) ............................................................... 310 Family dynamics ........................................................................ 311 Representations of employment ................................................ 330 Pornographic exploitation? ........................................................ 342 Conclusion ................................................................................. 349 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 352 Bibliography .......................................................................................... 363 Journal articles: refereed ........................................................... 363 Articles: general ......................................................................... 365 Book chapters ............................................................................ 371 Web articles ............................................................................... 390 Press-packs/publicity information .............................................. 402 Books ......................................................................................... 406 Film ............................................................................................ 421 Television ................................................................................... 424 Websites .................................................................................... 434 Reports ...................................................................................... 436 Miscellaneous ............................................................................ 439 iv Introduction This dissertation began life in in 2001, two years after the series Walking with Dinosaurs (1999) first aired. Broadcast on prime-time BBC1, the series was billed as “the world’s first natural history of Dinosaurs” (Tim Haines, cited in BBC 1999 Walking with Dinosaurs press-pack), and was discussed both in relation to natural history and documentary practices. Confused and irritated in equal measure by this, the series was neither natural history nor documentary, rather it was a pastiche of contemporary conjecture of the lifestyles of pre- historic life-forms packaged in a series of themed-narratives which utilized the conventions associated with popular factual programming. This began an investigation into both historical and contemporary natural history programming practices and their relationship with the representation of reality. This research was placed on hold for a number of years, and when returned to, the landscape of popular factual programming (of which the natural history genre is a part) had changed. This led to a re- evaluation of the main focus of the thesis which, rather than concentrating on natural history as a distinct entity, began positing this alongside new forms of popular factual programming which had emerged over the previous decade. The identification in 1999 of the ways in which natural history were being presented within a formatted, entertaining,