Codes and Modes

Mandy Rose is Associate Professor and Director of the Digital Cultures Research Centre, University of the West of England and a contributing Editor to the i-docs website. She researches the intersection between documentary and networked culture.

During Codes and Modes, she said that interactive documentary is like an interactive text in which participants engage with the content and that participation exists at two different levels, one is the production, and another the reception in which the audience acts as an active agent in the process of the experience.

Rose considers interactive documentary as an evolution from the traditional documentary form. She ponders storytelling as an important part of the social documentary, like a choreography of many voices for the audience to reflect about.

In relationship to VR documentary, she supports the correlation of the story in opposition to a reaction to technology.  Rose also made a distinction between real body presence and the idea of VR presence, in which there is a lack of empirical experience and body movements. In this context, she thinks that a visible voice over narrator can play an important role on VR documentaries by creating trust and emotions, and by helping people to better connect with the story.

Geetu Ambwani leads the data science team at the Huffington Post which is in charge of building data products for social sharing, engagement, and distribution of Huffington Post editorial and advertising content. At Codes & Modes, she presented her research about media and personalized algorithms, a method that she uses to search and understand how people receive and filter information.

Through this method, her team found that 6 in 10 Americans get their information through social media. This way of getting information is what she calls: Filter Bubble, which resulted in the cultural and ideological user’s isolation.

As a result, media is trying to find different ways to change this reality. They are investing on friendly user’s websites with new, compelling interfaces that help people to easily get a more balanced information.

Other approaches that they studied were: show people the opposing view, which was not well accepted by the public. Show people their bias, which denoted a moderate change towards a balanced information search. The third option, show people source credibility has been the most successful one, changing how credible the reader perceived the news and their disposition towards a more balanced news sources.

Compare and contrast New Wave with A History of Cuban Dance

In my opinion, the use of VR does not favor New Wave’s story. The poetic of the story is taken away by the 360 experience because there is not a feeling of place’s credibility. Also, the voice-over’s superposition doesn’t contribute to the increase of emotions or the perception of reality, on the contrary, it seems to augment the difficulties to understand the story. Additionally, New Wave is too short and with an inconclusive finale.

A History of Cuban Dance is a short VR documentary about Cuba’s history, which eloquently narrates how African music and dances have influenced local culture and history. In my opinion, the use of VR helps to convey the story, through what Mel Slater calls, place Illusion. We have the sensation of been there, listening to the music, and dancing with the locals. What is more, the use of a virtual environment to recount Cuba’s history through dance, and music enhance the poetic of the story.