ABSTRACT

This research is a creative exploration of transmedia’s ability to offer up a model of distribution and audience engagement for political documentary. Transmedia, as is well known, is a fluid concept. It is not restricted to the activities of the entertainment industry and its principles also reverberate in the practice of political and activist documentary projects. This practice-led research draws on data derived from the production and circulation of Obrero, an independent transmedia documentary. The project explores the conditions and context of the Filipino rebuild workers who migrated to Christchurch, New Zealand after the earthquake in 2011. Obrero began as a film festival documentary that co-exists with two other new media iterations, each reaching its respective target audience: a web documentary, and a Facebook-native documentary. This study argues that relocating the documentary across new media spaces not only expands the narrative but also extends the fieldwork and investigation, forms like-minded publics, and affords the creation of an organised hub of information for researchers, academics and the general public. Treating documentary as research can represent a novel pathway to knowledge generation and the present case study, overall, provides an innovative model for future scholarship.

摘要

这项研究是对跨媒体为政治纪录片提供发行和观众参与模型的能力的创造性探索。众所周知，跨媒体是一个流动的概念。它不仅限于娱乐业的活动，其原则也在政治和激进主义纪录片项目的实践中产生反响。这项以实践为导向的研究利用了来自独立跨媒体纪录片Obrero的制作和发行的数据。该项目探索了 2011 年地震后移居新西兰基督城的菲律宾重建工人的条件和背景。Obrero最初是一部电影节纪录片，与其他两个新媒体迭代共存，每个迭代都达到了各自的目标观众：网络纪录片和 Facebook 原生纪录片。本研究认为，跨新媒体空间重新定位纪录片不仅扩展了叙述，还扩展了实地考察和调查，形成志同道合的公众，并为研究人员、学者和公众提供了一个有组织的信息中心。将纪录片视为研究可以代表一种新的知识生成途径，总体而言，本案例研究为未来的学术研究提供了一个创新模型。