CULTURE IN
THE
DIGITAL AGE
DOCUMENTARY
Rationale

CLIENT RESEARCH: BBC
The BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) is the national
broadcasting station for the United Kingdom, founded on the
18th of October
October 1922 by John Reith. The reason that the BBC was created was to inform, educate
and entertain people of all ages across the UK and the world.
As the BBC does not include adverts in its broadcasts, it is funded by the UK citizens who
pay a TV license. It has several services including BBC News, Sport, Weather, CBBC,
Cbeebies, iPlayer, BBC Sounds, BBC Red Button and more.

CLIENT RESEARCH: BBC THREE
BBC Three was founded on the 9th of February 2003. In 2007 BBC iPlayer was released and
a result of that was that in February of 2016 BBC Three became online only, this was up until
its relaunch on the 1st of February 2022 when they broad it back to linear television.
Originally, it was planned that BBC Three would have a target audience of people aged 24-
35, however over time this changed, and their target audience was lowered to teenagers and
young adults (specifically those aged 16-25). However their programmes tend to be watched
by a range of different age ranges, not just their desired target audience.
BBC Three’s purpose is to bring younger audiences high
quality public service broadcasting through a mixed genre
schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent
(with 90% of their output originating from the UK).

TARGET AUDIENCE RESEARCH
To find out more about my target audience, such as their age, gender,
interests and knowledge of the BBC and BBC Three I created a survey which
I sent out and it received 16 responses. From this survey I found out that the
majority of participants were between the ages of 16 and 25, majority were
also female and all had heard of the BBC and BBC Three. 5 of which said
they watched BBC Three, 5 don’t watch BBC Three yet watch other BBC
channels, 6 watch neither.
I further asked if they watched TV or any documentaries to which the majority
said yes, meaning a documentary would be entertaining for them and they
would be willing to watch it, if the subject seemed appealing enough.

The next few questions that I included in my survey were
to found out more about my target audience’s interests
and what documentaries appealed to them. This was to
give me ideas of what I could choose for a main topic in
my documentary, if it linked to Culture in the Digital Age.
TARGET AUDIENCE RESEARCH
To find out more about their personal life and interests, I asked them what they enjoy doing in their
spare time, the top two answers with 13 votes each were watching tv/films and listening to music. The
tv/films answer showed that a documentary would interest them, and the music answer could be a
possible documentary topic, due to its popularity.
popularity.
A further question that I asked was what do the
documentaries that my target audience watch about. The
most common answer with 8 votes was true crime, other
popular answers included music, nature/wildlife, history,
etc.

DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH: MODES
There are five different modes of documentary, I described what each of them meant and asked my
target audience to pick which modes (they could choose more than one) the documentaries that they
watched were.
The most common answer was expository (clear narrative, usually used in nature documentaries) with 9
votes, then observational (film their subjects with as little intrusion and intervention as possible and
usually portray an accurate representation of reality) with 8, performative (opposite of objective,
emphasises the filmmaker's involvement with the subject, filmmaker is the documentaries personal
guide for the audience) and participatory (shows direct relationship between filmmaker and the subject of
the documentary, e.g. Louis Theroux’s My Scientology
Scientology Movie) with 7 and poetic (lack a clear
narrative and rely on juxtaposition of images and
sound to help create a mood and tone) and
reflexive (the process of making the documentary,
documenting the filmmaker's journey) with 5.
These could give me ideas about what to use in my
documentary.

DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH: CODES AND CONVENTIONS
I watched and analysed the codes and conventions of two different documentaries, one being Tiger
King, a Netflix original and The Instagram Effect, a BBC Three Documentary.
Tiger King included a voiceover narration, video footage and photographs (that were recorded privately,
not specifically for the documentary), talking heads and real people (Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, their
friends, family, workers/volunteers, etc).
The Instagram Effect included video footage and photographs (not recorded in purpose for the
documentary), talking heads and real people (Facebook/Instagram employees, influencers, etc.)
Tiger King is a true crime
documentary whereas
The Instagram Effect is
about the true effects of
social media and its
impact.

DOCUMENTARY IDEAS:
From the research that I conducted using a survey, I
found out about my target audiences' hobbies, what
they do in their spare time and what types of
documentaries that they enjoy watching.
From these answers there was a common theme which
was music. My survey results showed that 13 out of the
16 who completed the survey were interested in music
(making it tied as the favourite answer) and music was
the second highest voted answer when asked what the
documentaries that they watch are about.
Because of this, the idea for my documentary will be
how music has been affected by the digital age.

DOCUMENTARY IDEAS: PINTEREST BOARD
To find inspiration for my
documentary, I created a
Pinterest board relating to
music, mainly of how it is
recorded and released.
This helps as I plan for my
documentary to mainly be of
background clips relating to
music with a voiceover in the
background and this gives me
inspiration for what those clips
could be of.

WHY MY CAMPAIGN?
My campaign has been thoroughly thought through as I have created an idea for my
documentary that fits the brief. Due to my research into BBC Three's target audience of 16-
25, I have learnt about their interests, hobbies and what documentaries they find the most
enjoyable. By creating a documentary linking to music I am appealing to their interests,
making them more likely to watch and enjoy.
The purpose of this documentary is to shows the evolution of technology and its impact on
our culture, especially since the target audience have grown up around this ever-evolving
technology and therefore haven't fully seen its impact or effects. This way, my documentary
will inform and educate my target audience about the evolution of something that they find
interesting.