Database Documentaries

They are not watched, but rather performed by a reader/viewer […]

This quote is the key to the new power found in the “database documentary.” By forcing the viewer to interact directly with the content (“not just film and video, but also sound, static image, text, animation, actual documents […]”), the work can achieve a much more powerful result than a traditional, linear, narrative.

A defining feature is the shift in the recipient’s role as viewer to participant, or maybe explorer, or even creator. These works require interaction to function. By doing so, the audience is given opportunities to feel as though they’ve helped to create the result, or discover the end knowledge conveyed by the work. This helps lead to the sense of “ubiquitous scholarship” described in other chapters.

For examples of this work done successfully, look to The New York Times. Their own Mike Bostock is probably the most well-known programmer in the field of programmatic visualization. Some standout interactive narrative:

The degree of interaction varies, but each of these falls into the category of “database documentary” because they tell multiple stories. As you change your zipcode in “The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up”, the text changes too – the story hits closer to home, makes more sense to you based on the context with which you’re familiar. Same with “Money, Race, and Success”.

“Party, Gender, Whiskey” reveals exactly how fine-grained demographic targeting is getting these days. And “How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk” also shows how knowing the answers to just a few questions can tell you very close to where they grew up. But rather than saying this, writing it out like I have, they let the reader discover this for themselves by interacting with the tools themselves.

The textbook notes the challenges to this kind of storytelling: there is no longer one coherent story. Some stories that the data tells might not be as interesting as others. There are questions about authorship, and what is being authored – articles, or templates?

In general the shift to digital here frees the artist from former constraints, and allows presenting stories in a way that can better resonate with the viewer. But in doing so it seems like some of the magic is lost; after clicking through the second district in “Money, Race and Success” it can be discomfiting to realize that the text was automatically re-written, that there is not as much humanity behind those words as you originally may have thought.