Nay Kim, Sangheon Kim, Interactive Documentary on Perspective of New Media, International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering Vol. 9, No. 12 (2014), pp. 117-128

<http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/ijmue.2014.9.12.11>

This article discusses the framework of how to create an effective interactive documentary.  It explains some of the concepts of new media when creating this form of narrative.  Lev Manovich’s theory regarding the five principals of new media are briefly summarised and his name is mentioned throughout the reading.  Lev Manovich has written a few books on the subject and is a professor of Computer Science at the City University of New York.  There is also quite an amount of discussion on some of the challenges faced when creating this format.  This includes the duration of the documentary, the variety of media to use, the amount of clicks on a mouse to include and avoiding a linear structure.

The reading also addresses the important issue that confronts everyone making this format.  What type of authoring tool should be used to create interactive documentaries?  There are four different modes of interactivity discussed and each mode names an example of that particular method used.  I found this article helpful in explaining the issues that are confronted when producing this type of new media.  There is no set formula for non-linear storytelling but reading this article helps the reader understand the pitfalls to avoid when creating this type of content.  There are some quality examples of interactive documentaries named in the reading to help research what makes the interactivity successful.  These examples highlight the differing ways on how the audience can interact with the new media.