Revision:Realism

TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Media Studies > Realism

Hyper-reality

Is an exaggerated representation of real/normal life

“in the hand of its most successful practitioners documentary aspires to tell us something about the human condition. Docusoap by contrast tells us only something about the condition of human beings who know they are on TV”

Alison Pearson (journalist)

Creation of hyper real characters

People play to the camera to get into a program (Big brother etc) or to establish a media career (Jane Mcdonald..The cruise)

Realism factors

Codes and conventions to denote realism

Consider the repertoire of elements and codes/conventions

Technology (handheld cams…CGI)

Handheld cams always make it real?

Technology will always influence on the way the audience perceive the documentary.

Subject

Real mean day to day life – Ken Loach; Social realism…Class and social econmics.

Philosophical

Descartes – argued that you can’t prove that your thoughts are real. You could just be your perception of what is reality while it doesn’t actually exist.

Modes of Documentary

• Expository – constructed.
• Reflexive – real
• Different modes have difference expectations of the real.

Mediation and representation

Documentary aims to represent the world realistically, BUT there will always be mediation so everything will have an angle/slant.

Realism

Modern audiences trust reflexive documentary elements as showing reality most closely.

They are The Current signifiers of reality

Errol Morris: “Truth isn’t guaranteed by style of expression. It isn’t guaranteed by anything”

(There is nothing that can be done to truly be real..reference to Mediation/representation experience. (see earlier factors))

Comments

These notes could be useful for the A2 synoptic paper.

Originally written by Luzie on TSR forums.