Resumo

In Turkey, the digitalization of documentary production occurs in two distinct modes, parallel to the developments worldwide. We can term the first mode as “formal digitalization.” In formal digitalization, documentaries traditionally produced using analog devices are now made, distributed, exhibited, or broadcasted entirely digitally. Consequently, while the narrative structures and cinematic/televisual audiovisual regimes established in analog documentary filmmaking are preserved, the production, distribution, exhibition, and broadcasting processes have become entirely digitalized. Within this digitalization mode, new opportunities emerge, leading to partial innovations in the production, distribution, exhibition, and broadcasting of traditional documentaries. In the mode of digitalization we call “structural digitalization,” some documentarians—or artists, designers, and experts from different disciplines—leverage the unique affordances of digital medium and devices to produce digital documentaries where diverse narrative structures can be designed alongside established cinematic/televisual narrative structures using different audio-visual regimes. The digital documentaries produced within structural digitalization, characterized by their immersive and interactive qualities, are identified as new genres such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive documentaries. While the process of formal digitalization in the documentary field has been completed in Turkey, very few interactive documentaries have been produced as part of the structural digitalization. This paper aims to understand the reasons behind this limited production. To achieve this, it attempts to reinterpret the digitalization process in Turkey’s documentary production from a symptomatic reading perspective.