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Interactive documentary and education: a field to explore (I) - i-Docs

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Interactive documentary and education: a field to


explore (I)
August 15, 2012
Collaboration, Play, Research, Taxonomies, Technology, Uncategorized

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Interactive documentary and education: a field to explore (I) - i-Docs

One of the essential premises of the traditional documentary is the desire to organise a story that is both
informative and entertaining. And, in this sense, the interactive format should continue with the tradition to
try to offer similar experiences that mix a recreational (entertainment) proposal with an educational
one (knowledge), in the most efficient, original and attractive possible way. And this is mainly possible
thanks to the combination of different navigational and interactive modalities, which enable a multiple
exchange between the work and the interactor.
Firstly, navigating and visiting different proposals and structuring the content (information and knowledge) means
the use of strategies and resources of the games. This way, from the structure of the interactive, and through
the navigation modalities, the user, in a certain sense, plays with the possibilities offered by the work
and can satisfy their first necessity: amusement and entertainment.
Secondly, this strategy close to the game experience usually gives the user a sensation of deep immersion
and stops their learning from being boring and that their need of being informed or need or learning
ends up fading. Therefore, the didactic proposal offered is attractive and dynamic, beyond that present in most
classical hypertexts.
Already at this stage, the interactor learns through playing and once they have learnt the lesson in a
fun, original and light-hearted way, they can share it with other interactors, in real time or whenever
they deem it appropriate.
Therefore, we see how an interactive documentary can satisfy three needs or desires: that of the player
(recreational), that of the student or anyone with cultural interests (educational or formative) and that of
the communicator (communication level with other participants). Through the correct mixture of these
three aspects, non-fictional multimedia applications can be equated in terms of attractiveness with
proposals close to fiction.
Processes/behaviors involved in an interactive documentary:
1. Viewing (observer)
2. Learning (student)
3. Playing (player)
4. Sharing (interactor)

A (possible) new paradigm for education


Internet and Web 2.0 offer immense opportunities to enhance some of the classic principles of education and
disclosure of knowledge in general. The genres of interactive fiction and interactive nonfiction, applied in the
context of information transfer, and characterized in this post by the interactive documentary, are becoming
pedagogic tools and teaching materials used by the teacher in different contexts.
In the current ecosystem of digital media, how to display information quickly becomes appreciated when we see
how the traditional media and related audiovisual productions (fiction and nonfiction) with certain forms of
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Interactive documentary and education: a field to explore (I) - i-Docs

exhibition and distribution approach and has increasingly given way to the creation of projects that hybridize the
two formulas, information (content) with entertainment (fun). Incorporating interactivity means going one step
further and allows the participation and involvement of the user. The formats have created new platforms for
interactive display capable of collecting various types of content, in addition to achieving break the linearity of the
prevailing discourse of traditional formats consume content from the classical Greek period.
This post focuses on the study of the process of converging between two communication fields, which are,
apparently, very different: the documentary genre and digital media. Although the history of the documentary
started half a century before that the one of the digital media, both processes have progressed and, nowadays,
they have reached a very interesting point of convergence. From this first contact, each genre adopted a series of
properties and characteristics typical of the other. In some ways, a fusion begins from mutual attraction: the
documentary genre contributes with its several modes of representing reality, and the digital media genre
contributes with its new navigating and interacting modes. This setting has favored the development of different
formats and the creation of new genres, such as the interactive documentary, which is a result of a double fusion
of, on one hand, the audiovisual (documentary genre) and interaction (interactive digital media), and, on the other
hand, between information (content) and entertainment (interactive interfaces).

The interactive documentary as a new 2.0 learning system for the digital natives
Internet, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 offer immense opportunities to enhance some of the classic principles of
education and disclosure of knowledge in general. Some of the pedagogical principles in teaching give us clues
about how to approach the use of Web 2.0 and future versions. Then we present some of the advantages posed
by these new technologies in educational uses:
- Open possibilities to create networks of learning
- Foster cooperation and collaboration between those who wish to learn (while opening paths to reinforce the
personal differences and autonomy)
- Facilitate the exchange of information and resources
- Facilitate the dissemination and presentation of results and work
- Facilitate the replenishment, storage and indexing works
- Provide new ways for the evaluation
- Provide greater flexibility in many ways
- Etc.
The change proposed by the Internet is ideal to apply in the field of education and knowledge transfer. In this area,
the interactive disclosure (interactive applications that have different displays or browsing possibilities and show a
clear educational and recreational intention) has a lot to say. Therefore, it is to converge and mix two different
strategies, one based on fun and learning and a second based on new technologies. Salaverra comments on
Hipertexto periodstico: mito y realidad (2003), the fact that the hypertext character of cyberspace has opened
great opportunities to update journalistic text. Thanks to hypertext, it is possible to explore nonlinear ways of
structuring the speech and to encourage readers participation in the configuration of narrative itineraries.
Nevertheless, these theoretical possibilities come up against a much modest reality: present cybermedia show a
noticeable tendency to reproduce in cyberspace the textual formats that they used in other supports. (Salaverra,
2003:517)
To overcome this tendency to imitate older models in a new medium which does not fit, Salaverra highlights the
importance of being able to combine entertainment strategies with respect to the dissemination of information in
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the new interactive paradigm digital:


The new media demand new ways of presenting information. The hypertext and interactive potentialities of digital
networks mean that the media must make an effort to develop information formats that take advantage of these
utilities. [...] The youth of today, i.e. the readers of tomorrow are used to consuming entertainment-based
audiovisual and interactive content, and it is logical that if the media want to attract their attention they will have to
develop formats that somehow include these characteristics in the information discourse. (Salaverra, 2003:36)
Ribas (2000) explains it clearly and concisely in the final section of his research called El tractament dels
interactius dautor o assaigs interactius [The treatment of author interactive or interactive essays]:
Our central hypothesis for future research is that there is a wide range of interactive cultural diffusion
characterized by a treatment that closely integrates the navigation for the information structure and the navigation
by the content. (Ribas, 2000:104)
The navigation for the information structure allows the exploration in the traditional sense (from a menu you can
view a given program of a subject). Moreover, the added value of offline interactive cultural diffusion contribution at
the time was the fact of having an interactive navigation structure content. This mode allows the user to explore in
a more fun and close to the case of games way, making the experience of learning something rather than link
some documents. Ribas continues developing their central hypothesis:
We got this idea from the realization that the essential characteristic of cognitive overload is precisely the effect
on cognitive abilities of the reader, because there is competition between these two positions in the awakening
process and content. Integrating both seem the better option and more attractive. We believe that this solution
has been adopted by many designers spontaneously and is specific enough to be able to detect and
characterize. (Ribas, 2000:104).
As we see, when these two processes are not balanced in the learning process, it produces the cognitive
saturation of the student, and this is extrapolated to any educational environment. When a student is bored and
loses attraction in the study, loses interest or just does not assimilate the information in hand. Ribas explains in
the following paragraph that the user has to be stimulated to avoid losing the interest at the same time, and some
strategies are a positive approach to challenges and rising expectations. His current work is directed to solving
these issues. As he states (2000:104), the different ways of doing this integration and how they provide
opportunities to stimulate and maintain the user interested are based on positive challenges or enlargement of the
expectations. Ribas believes that essential feature of the interactive essays and nonfiction is the fact that these
two structures were joined together and not separately, are articulated from a particular argument, which affects
the semantics, relating both structures, and is responsible for sorting, marking and fragmenting the content:
We think that the defining feature of interactive essays is that the semantics of nodes own content and link
semantics, proper of the structure, are intimately mixed so that the navigation of content and navigation structure
are inseparable, cannot be divided without altering them substantially. In the interactive essays the interfaces that
developed this treatment have a plot, a structure intimately related to both semantic and order and set the pace
and fragmentation of content. (Ribas, 2000:106)

It should be noted that this proposal is being reviewed in order to be presented as part of the theoretical
framework on interactive documentary study, which may be subject to changes in the future (PhD defense:The
interactive documentary as a new audiovisual genre. Approach to proposed definition, taxonomy and analysis
model for the evaluation, design and production, UPF 2007-2012).

Arnau Gifreu Castells


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Researcher, Professor and Producer


Universitat Ramn Llull / Universitat de Vic

Bibliographic references
Prensky, M. (2001), Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. NCB University Press. Vol. 9 No.5,
October.
Ribas, J. I. (2000), Caracteritzaci dels interactius multimdia de difusi cultural. Aproximaci a un tractament
especfic, els assaigs interactius [research work], Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Facultat de
Comunicaci.
Salaverra, R. (2003), Hipertexto periodstico: mito y realidad (2003), in Tripodos 2005, pp. 517-524.

Other posts related:


1. Interesting ideas on i-docs
2. The docu-game. Towards the immersive mode
3. Interactivity technologies, key factor for the interactive documentary
4. The evolution of the Internet, key factor for the interactive documentary
5. The evolution of the Internet, key factor for the interactive documentary (II)
6. The interactive documentary during the evolution of the Internet: giving examples of the different phases.
Assumptions about the technological future.
7. Where we come from. Introduction and initial ingredients to build a correct taxonomic proposal
8. Research questions and compared methodology to establish a taxonomic study of the interactive documentary
9. Compared methodology to establish a taxonomic study of the interactive documentary (II)
10. Taxonomic discussions in the educational context: key issues in relation to interactive documentary (I)
11. Taxonomic discussions in the educational context: key issues in relation to interactive documentary (II)
12. Differences between linear and interactive documentaries. Featuring the interactive documentary (I)
13. Basic characteristics of the interactive documentary. Featuring the interactive documentary (II)
14. Flows of the visible: the expansion of the documentary, interesting masterclass by Professor Dr. Josep
Maria Catal (UAB)
15. On the loss of control over the narrative. New roles on the interactive documentary (I)
16. Significant differences between the two models. New roles on the interactive documentary (II)
17. Why Canada? Story of an amazing experience (I)
18. The i-docs evolution, in just 10 points ( + Sandra Gaudenzi)
19. Non-fiction games structure: a successful formula for the interactive documentary
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20. Idea or technique? Interesting topics and technological simplicity: Honkytonk projects as case studies (I)
21. Basic distinction between representation, navigation and interaction modes. Interactive documentary
modalities (I)
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