Civic participation and interactive documentaries: A contribution to the open government model

Abstract

This research introduces the marriage between interactive documentaries (i-docs) and politics as an opportunity to motivate new civic participation and expression in the political sphere. The main objective of this study is to identify the different degrees of civic participation that i-docs permit and to setup a classification according to these levels of engagement. In order to achieve the main objective, this research has analyzed a group of documentaries using a mixture of Gaudenzi, Gifreu-Castells, and Nash methodology. The results show that it is possible to find a parallel between the closed mode and the Orwellian model; the semi-closed mode and the Tokenism model; the semi-opened mode and the playful model; and between the opened mode and the Athenian model. However, only the opened mode, used in the Global lives documentary, offers a real experience that symbolizes the purest representation of an open government system.