Tame Iti featured on the cover of the latest Pacific Journalism Review. Image: Jos Wheeler/The Price of Peace |
The October edition examines the state of documentary practice in the Asia-Pacific region and also profiles the work of many contemporary filmmakers.
“Documentary programmes on broadcast television have been progressively replaced by lavish series, formulaic docu-soaps or reality TV,” writes edition co-editor Professor Barry King in his editorial.
He adds that a “troubling implication is that post-documentary forms threaten the legitimacy and credibility of the documentary tradition as a whole.”
King notes that one symptom of this “tangible appetite can be found in the rise of citizen journalism, which, however evaluated, still answers to civic impulse”. The surveillance of authorities also boosted this eyewitness function.