Encountering the World with I-Docs

This book examines the values of interactive documentary as a social research method, exploring their exciting potential for illuminating and communicating pressing social issues. Providing a template for planning an i-doc, the novel book shows how the planning process alone can open new ways of understanding social research topics.

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Interactive documentaries, or i-docs, are web based, multimedia documentaries that immerse audiences through dynamic, interactive platforms. This book unlocks the value of i-docs as a creative research method, providing an engaging guide on how to use i-docs to examine and communicate research subjects.


With examples, conceptual discussion, and practical advice, the book explores how i-docs can illuminate topics including temporalities, power and space, affect and feeling, freedom, and epistemic justice. The book addresses i-docs as a digital form but also shows that even just planning an i-doc on paper can open up new analytical perspectives.


Key features of the book include:


- An easy to use template for planning your own i-doc;


- Advice on how researchers can ‘think with i-docs’ without even producing one;


- Discussion of methodological work with i-docs including participatory i-doc making;


Insights into a range of examples of commercial, activist and research i-docs from around the world.


This book is a valuable resource for scholars, students, community researchers, creatives and activists who want to enlist and ignite the possibilities of i-docs.