Engaging with Reality (Book)

Documentary and Globalization

Edited by Ib Bondebjerg

As our world becomes more globalized, documentary film and television tell more cosmopolitan stories of the world’s social, political and cultural situation. Ib Bondebjerg examines how global challenges are reflected and represented in documentaries from the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia after 2001. The documentaries deal with the war on terror, the globalization of politics, migration, the multicultural challenge and climate change.

Engaging with Reality is framed by theories of globalization and delves into the development of a new global media culture. It also deals with theories of documentary genres and their social and cultural functions. It discusses cosmopolitanism and the role and forms of documentary in a new digital and global media culture. It will be essential reading for those looking to better understand documentary and the new transnational approach to modern media culture.

Edition

This book is framed by theories of globalization and delves into the development of a new global media culture. It also deals with theories of documentary genres and their social and cultural functions. Engaging with Reality contributes to a new and broader understanding of our changing, contemporary media culture and offers a comparative, transnational analysis of the forms and functions of documentary in a new global and digital media culture.

Ib Bondebjerg is professor of film and media studies, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, and was the founder and director of the Centre for Modern European Studies (2008-20011). From 2000 to 2009 he was the editor of Northern Lights: Film and Media Studies Yearbook and he is part of the advisory board of Studies in Documentary Film and Journal of Scandinavian Cinema. His main research area is European film and media culture and documentary genres. He was co-director of the ESF Research project Changing Media - Changing Europe (2000-2005) and is co-director of the HERA project, Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens (MeCETES, 2013-216). His most recent publications are Media, Democracy and European Culture (2008, co-editor and contributor), Narratives of Reality: The History of the Danish Television Documentary (2008, in Danish), Images of Reality: The Modern Danish Film Documentary (2012, in Danish), Engaging with Reality: Documentary and Globalization (2014) and Danish Directors 3: Dialogues on the New Danish Documentary Cinema (co-editor, 2014).

Introduction: Documentary, contemporary society and media culture 

PART I: Globalization, documentary film and television

Chapter 1: Globalization in a mediated world

Chapter 2: Sociology and aesthetics of documentary genres

Chapter 3: Engaging with and investigating reality: the social and political documentary

PART II: War, terror and democracy: the post-9/11 documentary

Chapter 4: Into the dark side: the politics of war

Chapter 5: On the battleground: reporting and representing war

Chapter 6: Behind the headlines: documentaries, war, terror and everyday life

PART III: A new global order: political, social and cultural challenges

Chapter 7: Politics and spin in a mediated world

Chapter 8: A multicultural world: migration, culture and everyday life

Chapter 9: Risk society: the environmental challenge

Conclusion: Cosmopolitan narratives: documentary in the new digital media culture

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