Third digital documentary : a theory and practice of transmedia arts activism, critical design and ethics.

Like new. - Introduction -- Given the increased options of multiple digital platforms available to practitioners of social issue documentaries, what kinds of new considerations are required during research, production and distribution? We often think of social justice-driven documentaries as articulating some form of oppression that requires awareness, and the subsequent alleviation of this issue. Some documentaries foreground the systemic problems of the issue to get at its root cause, contributing to the continued discourse of neocolonialism, and potentially to the growing robust acts of decolonization. Within the highly visible milieu of digital activism from those seeking a more just existence, this book argues for the potentials and benefits of a critical research design practice and production ethics to pilot new collaborations in documentary and digital media platforms toward what I call a third digital documentary. My concept of a third digital documentary takes its intellectual legacy and inspiration from Third Cinema, a new form of communication theory and practice articulated in 1969 by Argentinian filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino that responds, and continues to respond, to neocolonial oppression.1 Lfte Third Cinema, a third digital documentary is an audio-visual experience, a theory and a way of practice that utilizes a decolonizing framework in order to simultaneously arrive at a new consciousness and carve out spaces of freedom, whether physical or psychic- spaces needed to imagine, invent and construct new realities, identities and futures. -- In describing what a third digital documentary is and does, the book begins with the decision-making process to commit rime and resources toward addressing a social justice issue through a documentary mode of production. The book then discusses the critical empirical, ethical, activist and artistic approaches to representing the issue at hand, while evaluating the increasingly accessible digital documentary tools and practices available. Hence, the following chaptets are meant to offer documentary professionals and amateurs, designers, artists, students and scholars a working method to critically research, reflect, design and potentially produce a transmedia documentary presentation - one chat moves across multiple mediums -as a contribution to the alleviation of contemporary social issues. One of the main approaches in the book is presenting an in-depth background and analyses of a transmedia documentary project I produced, Tongues of Heaven/Root Tongue, on language endangerment and reviralization, This transmedia project consists of the one-hour documentary Tongues of Heaven that explores case studies and personal stories from Taiwan and Hawai'i, and the companion web application Root Tongue: Sharing Stories of Language Identity and Revival (<http:// root-tongue.com>) that provides space for users to explore the challenges of language endangerment and preservation by sharing their perspectives through dialogue and creative uploads of their videos, images, audio and writings.1 What makes this approach to studying cranstnedia documentary productions unique is that it enables readers to better understand the complexities of what a third digital documentary practice entails, including its pitfalls, successes and possibilities. My aim is that through this personally shared experience as an artist scholar, this book can be utilized as an in-depth guide for a radical decolonial practice, for personal and professional reflections, allied solidarity work, and a rethinking of digital activism in today's social justice issue landscape. ISBN 9781789973297