How to embody the principle of documentary authenticity

To talk about documentaries, we must first understand what documentaries are. This thing must have been produced after modern media. However, through search, I found that the concept of movies recorded on TV has always been vague, and its definition has not yet formed a recognized model. Until now. But in practice, this did not affect the creation of documentary too much. As long as it is a program called documentary in practice, there always seems to be a vague and general category concept in people's minds. Therefore, in the broadest sense, TV documentaries have their own creative laws and general categories. In principle, my understanding is that. Documentaries should at least keep the words "record the truth". Therefore, truth has become one of the essential attributes of documentaries. There is a long discussion about the truth after this article. )

In the documentary family, we can find three categories: news documentary, comprehensive documentary and humanistic documentary. Speaking of differences, the former two are to observe the world from a macro perspective and record events, while the latter is to describe life from a micro perspective, so as to achieve communication and resonance between creators and appreciators. News documentaries pay more attention to the objective truth with timeliness, while comprehensive documentaries locate the facts in the objective world from the diachronic and systematic internal relations. Most news programs in China, such as News Investigation, can still be regarded as a kind of TV news documentary.

However, it is worth noting that there are also some critical works in the techniques and modes of the three documentaries, some of which have both the creative methods of the first two documentaries and the news and its internal process; Some of them have the color of the latter two, but in any case, we can find that it always looks at the world being photographed from a fundamental perspective, but this may change during walking.

The authenticity of news documentary

In journalism, truth can be divided into subjective truth, symbolic truth and objective truth. Pure objective truth

Invisible to individuals, they are expressed in the truth of human symbols. Because people can't leave their own perspective, television is undoubtedly the real carrier of symbols. The common ground of documentaries mainly lies in the recognition of authenticity. But since it exists as a symbol, it is very different from the objective reality. They can only reflect the objective truth through symbols, but can't restore it. Documentary is impossible if it is absolutely objective and true. Our TV (movie) as a two-dimensional plane to reflect the real three-dimensional world itself is a simulation. But they are also true, which comes from the truth of symbols. Fake news documentaries made for propaganda or other utilitarian purposes will always be an insult to journalism. They are essentially different from TV literary works. So, how do we view their truth? How to evaluate their significance with truth as the value scale?

Bowling of Columbine, which just won the Oscar for Best Documentary this year, is a film aimed at the proliferation of guns in the United States. The problems arising from the legalization of guns directed by Michael Moore are naked and controversial, which also reflects some viewpoints of the directors. But recently it was revealed that the director had talked to most people in the film before interviewing them. The audience was in an uproar, thinking that this hindered the documentary from pursuing the truth and asked the college to cancel the award for him. However, some people object that documentary is also a way to reflect the director's real intention. Even if all the recorded parts are completely true, the director can achieve what he wants to say in various ways in the later period. Therefore, we can find that on the realistic axis, news TV documentaries need to make their symbolic truth conform to the absolute truth of the objective world to the greatest extent. Although journalists often show their strong subjective position, this subjectivity is based on his simulation of objective reality. In other words, he himself is a voice representing the objective world. Even in critical works such as Focus Interview, journalists interfere with what has happened and is happening from a purely objective standpoint. They are not a third party, and their clear position is by no means a personal subjective feeling, but a representative of society and a manifestation of rational principles. Therefore, it can better reflect human collective cognition of objectivity.

Or here, objective truth is not just a means, but an end. Its purpose is to let the audience know and understand the objective facts. Therefore, here, if journalists can express their subjective world, it is based on the premise that the subjective world of journalists is consistent with the objective world. From this perspective, we can see that both investigation news programs and commentary news programs are the transmission of semantic information and pragmatic information. Because this kind of subjectivity is not a simple individuality, but a group's subjectivity, which is a subjective perspective representing the whole society. Therefore, we can say that it still expresses objective truth.

Therefore, our TV news documentaries and print media news works have the same nature horizontally. The starting point and value standard of their expression of the objective world are the same, but the means of expression are different. On the one hand, the evaluation standard of news records for news events reproduction is the same as that of print media, depending on whether it can be closer to the objective truth. In other words, does the creator really observe and record the facts that have happened and the facts that are happening from an objective and true starting point? The less its viewpoint represents its subjective intention and influence, the closer it will be to the objective truth. On the other hand, if he stands more in the position of individuals or groups, then the meaning it symbolizes will be even more discounted. On the other hand, it also depends on the position and influence of the facts he expressed in the objective world. That is, the evaluation criteria of news facts themselves. It is these two aspects that together constitute the "meaning" of a news work.

The principle of judging authenticity

Documentary, as a symbol, really exists, so it can't be an objective and true restoration. So, what criteria are used to judge the facts it shows? Or what is the principle of judgment?

The real world is beyond our reach, so how can people get rid of relative confusion and be true?

..... these are all questions that we need to think about.

News authenticity has always been a key issue in journalism. Although it can't be absolutely true and virtual, it has a relatively real orientation. Then we can see where the line between fiction and reality is.

In news works, everything you describe may be true, but you always ignore some aspects intentionally or unintentionally, which will inevitably destroy the integrity and accuracy of the facts. In a sense, you haven't told your readers the absolute truth. As an individual, you can only explain certain factors to readers and audiences, but not uncertain things. But it should be said that this already represents a symbolic truth. Because some factors are always certain and some factors are uncertain. As long as what you explain does not conflict with the objective truth, or you express some uncertain factors in an uncertain way and turn them into deterministic factors, just like expressing possibilities in speculative language in news works. This is also a truth.

So, what kind of symbols constitute a novel? In the facts described, there are obviously factors that conflict with the objective certainty of logic. At this time, if the objective world can give evidence, then we can call it falsehood and fiction. Novels, TV plays and movies are all fictional works because their whole events have never happened in the real world. A historical documentary can only show a dead historical figure like Qin Shihuang through the images of history books, portraits, venues and memories we can find now, while TV dramas and movies can find an actor to reproduce his life. Then the pictures and images in the feature film must be false-because they conflict with the objective truth, anyway, Qin Shihuang is impossible to appear again. And in that historical documentary, if you can't find such fictional evidence. In this way, we can call it non-virtual work.

Therefore, no matter which TV documentary is true, it is not reflected in the complete reproduction of the objective world, because that kind of reproduction will never exist. In other words, we have no right to accuse it of saying nothing; As long as we can't find anything that conflicts with the objective truth in our works, we regard it as a symbolic truth.

conclusion

To sum up, I can draw the conclusion that as long as I firmly adhere to my principle as a journalist, I can grasp the material structure I really need in the images I interview or record and tell the audience what they should or should know, instead of being completely controlled by how much truth I reflect (because people have different abilities).

Postscript: Because I studied science before, I should know all about the writing of liberal arts papers-I don't know anything, and my writing is stuck. But because I study science, I pay more attention to the logical flow in the article, so there should be no big problem in the sense. Anyway, everything is out, and many of them are borrowed from outside. I can't help feeling ashamed. I hope you don't blame them.

This article is good, you can refer to it. ........