Павленко Олена - диплом, 2011

МІНІСТЕРСТВО ОСВІТИ І НАУКИ,МОЛОДІ ТА СПОРТУ УКРАЇНИ НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ УНІВЕРСИТЕТ „КИЄВО-МОГИЛЯНСЬКА АКАДЕМІЯ” Факультет соціальних наук і соціальних технологій

Кафедра Могилянська школа журналістики

Напрям підготовки 0302 Журналістика КВАЛІФІКАЦІЙНА РОБОТА на тему __Вибір документального кіно: порівняння уподобань української та німецької аудиторії

Виконав(ла)

______________

_____Павленко Олена Сергіївна_____

(підпис)

Науковий керівник ___________

(прізвище, імя, по-батькові)

_ст. викладач Губенко Дмитро__ (науковий ступінь, вчене звання, прізвище, ініціали)

Консультант ___________

_ст. викладач Гринько Анастасія__ (науковий ступінь, вчене звання, прізвище, ініціали)

Робота допущена до захисту ___.06.2011р. ______________ Є.М.Федченко

Київ – 2011

National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Acaedemy” Kyiv-Mohyla School of Journalism

CHOICE OF DOCUMENTARIES: THE COMPARISON OF PREFERENCES OF UKRAINIAN AND GERMAN AUDIENCES A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement For the degree of Master of Arts in Journalism

By Olena Pavlenko

Tutor: Dmytro Hubenko, Head Teacher Counsellor: Anastasia Grynko, Head Teacher

Kyiv 2011

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 4 1. LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................................... 9 1.1 Defining the documentary................................................................................ 9 1.2 Functions of a documentary film ................................................................... 12 1.3 How the Internet changes attitude towards documentaries ........................... 21 1.4 The Internet influence on new forms of documentary films and viewers‟ behavior ................................................................................................................ 27 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES ...................................................................... 31 2.1.1 The Internet questionnaire survey –theoretical background ....................... 32 2.1.2 The Internet questionnaire design and participants .................................... 41 2.2.1 The method of focus groups – the theoretical background......................... 43 2.2.2 The focus group design and participants .................................................... 56 3. THE RESEARCH RESULTS ............................................................................. 58 3.1 Data analysis of focus groups ........................................................................ 58 3.2 Results of the Internet questionnaire survey .................................................. 68 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................... 83 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 88 Appendix A ............................................................................................................. 96 Appendix B.............................................................................................................. 97 Appendix C.............................................................................................................. 98 Appendix D ............................................................................................................. 99

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INTRODUCTION

The changes the documentary genre faces today cannot be overestimated.

The technological innovations of the last decades made it possible to create rewarding documentary films even with modest budgets, as well as provided more possibilities for distribution of documentary films among the wide audience. The vast popularity of the recent documentary films, such as “Bowling for Columbine” (2002), “Fahrenheit 9/11” (2004), “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), “Oceans” (2009) and many others, which were warmly welcomed by viewers all over the world, make it possible to say that today we live in the Golden Age of documentary films. As Jane Chapman writes about the new face of a documentary film, it “is becoming increasingly versatile, and documentary elements can be transmitted or exhibited using a variety of platforms”, which is seen by Chapman “as the evidence of its documentary‟s renewed power” [45, p.180].

Patricia Aufderheide, an expert on documentary film at American University‟s School of Communication, expresses an opinion about the changing face of a documentary film: “Documentaries have become more popular as a distrust of mainstream media has grown. Viewers see documentaries as truth tellers” [75]. Tue Steen Müller, renowned International consultant on Documentary is also optimistic about the development of documentary importance nowadays. He sees documentary films having moved on to the level after being seen only as the tools of education and information, and often – as propaganda. He states that today, because of efforts of modern documentary filmmakers, such as Michael Moore and many others, “documentaries are entertaining and openly provocative, and thanks to the technical development they can be watched in a variety of situations from the computer to the big screen in the cinema” [97].

The emergence of cheaper and more flexible technology allows anybody to make a documentary, to edit their films quickly, and to promote them on the Internet [45, p. 71].In the last years we became used to the fact that the most

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common way of displaying documentaries was television. However, the changes the documentary genre has undergone because of being adapted to a television platform, sometimes were too devastating. As Kilborn and Isod write about this issue, because “television acquired a different set of priorities” in comparison to cinema, documentary therefore “found itself in the position of having to adapt to the new styles and modes of address, as well as having to adjust to a stricter regulatory regime” [80, p. 24]. The researchers have already stated in 1997 that because of restrictions implemented by television on the documentary genre, more and more documentarists started switching to alternative modes of delivery, such as the Internet.

The development of the Internet could not be seen only as the development of technologies. What is the most significant qualitative we are facing today is the increasing importance of the Internet audience, which is becoming the powerful source of public opinion and permanently shows the increasing interest in audiovisual information. According to the official statistics of video-sharing website YouTube, in 2010 there were registered more than 700 billion video views [108], and there are a lot of more popular video services attracting more and more viewers every day. By 2006 video downloading occupied nearly half of the total traffic on the Internet [70, p. 21], and we could only guess how much of documentary films are distributed in this way today.

It is difficult to understand, but despite the increased importance of the Internet as a modern media source, it still remains unfairly ignored in the sense of academic research of its role as a new platform for distribution of documentary films. The topic of digital technology influence on the documentary filmmaking is gradually being uncovered both by theoretical and practical works, such as Jane Chaspman‟s book “Issues in contemporary documentary” (2009) or Maxine Baker‟s “Documentary in the digital age” (2006).

Unfortunately, we could not mention the broad range of the studies fully dedicated to the research of the Internet audience of documentary films, however such a research is an issue of a great importance in terms of modern situation with

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the video distribution via Internet. Documentary films, as a part of video productions, are seen via the Internet, they are being commented by the viewers, advised to other people using social networks and therefore are being influenced by the Internet audience. Still, even recent works of audience researchers do not deal with the Internet issue. For example, work of the audience researcher Thomas Austin [86] is an example of such an audience research, where despite his attempt to make up the lack of audience research in relation to institutions, the author does not even once mention the impact of the newest and most powerful institution of them all: the Internet. The complexity of the issue clearly calls for more research, but as Chapman writes, “the question of audience is a neglected area in the case of documentary.” [45, p. 138].

It is reasonable to assume that the media institutions that make or show documentaries would know what audiences think, so let us assume a great need of researches related to this topic. In 2010 Vira Pidhayna, the Master of Journalism studying at the Kyiv-Mohyla School of Journalism wrote in the preface to her master‟s thesis related to the documentary film: “The future of the nonfiction films could be found in the television format”. Despite such a statement, the author of this study paid attention to the information, that according to the research conducted by Pidhayna, 45% of the respondents were downloading documentaries from the Internet and 29% of the respondents were watching documentaries online.

This information, as well as mentioned above lack of studies related to the audiences of documentary films in total and particularly its internet segment, resulted in the actual research, related to analysis of documentary viewer‟s preferences and their attitude towards the Internet as a source of documentary films.

In order to define the limits of this study, a specific part of the audience was chosen. These are students of higher education institutions aged 18 – 25 years. In order to increase the value of the research, it has been decided to make the comparative research based on analysis of documentary audiences of two

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European countries – Ukraine and Germany. Such age restrictions, as well as countries of research, are chosen not accidentally.

Although the situation with Ukrainian documentary industry could not be described optimistically, it is useful to grasp in advance the tastes of Ukrainian documentary films viewers. Let us hope that despite the fact that most of the documentary films shown in Ukraine today are made outside Ukraine, the situation will change sooner or later, and this research can become a base for further studies in this field.

Speaking of Germany, this country is remarkable not only for the welldeveloped industry of documentary filmmaking, but also for being ranked as the largest online population of any country in Europe – there were 65,123,800 Internet users as of June 2010, or 79,1% of the country population [104].

The important fact for our research is that over 97% of residents aged 14 to 19 and 95% of users aged 20 – 29 were using the Internet in February 2011(see Appendix A), according to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Online Forschung (AGOF) [100]. Thus, people of this age are seen as the most broadly presented demographic segment in the Internet in Germany. Another remarkable characteristics of German Internet audience is that in November, 2010 about 151 million videos were being watched daily in Germany – and this figure will nearly triple to almost 390 million by 2015 [110].

The situation with the Internet in Ukraine is also an important issue for our study. Firstly, the growth of Ukrainian Internet audience in April, 2011 is more than 31% in comparison to the same month of 2010. Moreover, the most active part of the Internet audience in Ukraine are people aged 14 – 24 (36%), or, if we speak of the educational characteristics, the majority of people who use the Internet are those who have the higher education (44%) or incomplete higher education (30%) [116] (see Appendix B). These facts explain the reason why it has been decided to choose the people who are currently receiving their higher education in Germany and in Ukraine as the main object of the study. As the most active

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representatives of the Internet audience at the present moment, the university students presumably will also be the active group of documentary film audience.

The research is planning to answer the next research questions – what are the most important features of a documentary film for the audience we have chosen, what are the most popular media institutions providing the viewers with documentary films today and what are the main tendencies of the Internet usage as a new source of documentaries.

As a result of the study, it is planned: -

to sort out the main categories defining the successful and qualitative documentary film as it is seen by the audience;

-

to clarify the role of a documentary film in the life of Ukrainian and German students;

-

to provide the statistical information about the value of different media sources as providing access to documentaries for students of higher education institutions;

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to underline the important trends and starting points for the further researches on the topic;

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to compare preferences, find similarities and differences in Ukrainian and German students‟ attitude towards the role of the Internet as the connection between them and documentary films; The qualitative and quantitative methods used in this research will make it

possible to analyze the tastes of this audience and make easier the understanding of the main tendencies of its attitude towards the documentary films and new media sources for access to it. The actual importance of this study is caused both by the lack of other researches on this topic, the significant role of the Internet as a source of audiovisual information and the boom of documentary films described today by documentary filmmakers as “The Golden Age of Documentary”.

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1. LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1

Defining the documentary

The disputes about the person, who created the cinema, seem to be endless – it is difficult to choose whose invention was closer to the idea of filmmaking: is it Edison‟s kinetoscope, Skladanowsky‟s bioscope, Lumieres‟ „Cinématographe‟ or someone‟s else invention which didn‟t bring fame to its inventor [93, p. 132; 49, p.145]. Despite such a big variety of people working towards the development of a new idea of moving pictures, the 1895 year could be considered as the starting point for the film industry. Then two important events occurred. Firstly, that year two

French

brothers,

Auguste

and

Louis

Lumiere

invented

so-called

„Cinématographe‟, which combined in itself a movie camera and a projector [31, p.

160; 12, p. 149]. Secondly, in the end of the very same year, on December, 28 th the first public film screening took place at the Grand Café at the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris [58, p.50].

The first movies being shown that December day – among them famous “Men and Women Employees Leaving the Lumiere Factory” and “Arrival of a Train at the Station of La Ciotat” – gave rise to the expression “I have been to a movie” [58, p. 50].

But for us the most important thing about these short movies is the fact that we could consider them as the first documentary films ever made – how else could we interpret the sequences with real people but not actors doing real things in front of the Lumiere brothers‟ cinematograph? So,despite the fact that “Nanook of the North” directed by Robert Flaherty in 1922 is named the first feature documentary [24, p. 99], let us declare: the film industry started with a documentary film.

To define a documentary film and especially to distinct it from a feature film, let us firstly pay attention to the words of one of the most famous filmmakers – Dziga Vertov, a cinema theorist and a soviet pioneer of documentary film, who

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proclaimed in 1922 in his “We” manifesto: “Down with bourgeois screenplay fairy tales! Long live life as it is!” [92, p. 398].

Probably, this is the purest definition of the documentary genre – “Life as it is”. At the beginning of his career Vertov also described the documentary film he was planning to create as “the recording of facts which would then be organized into larger units such as the ocherk” [47, p. 10].We must admit that pure and objective recording of reality without any subjective influence hardly seems to be an accessible point for any documentary filmmaker – even Dziga Vertov disturbed the reality he was filming by structuring – his films not solely according to their strict chronological order, but ultimately according to associations and logical, causal links between the various constituent elements [47, p. 11]. Speaking of the mentioned earlier “Nanook of the North”, first feature documentary, its author Robert Flaherty was also accused of interference in the strict flow of facts and even employment of staged elements in this documentary [20, p. 202].

Speaking of the truthfulness and objectivity of a non-fiction film, the British film historian, critic, and documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha has expressed an opinion about changing perception of documentary in the modern world. He disputes the idea that a documentary could be a completely objective representation of a real life: “The essence of the documentary method lies in its dramatization of actual material. The very act of dramatizing causes a film statement to be false to actuality” [26, p. 245]. The very similar idea about the documentary is subjectivity expressed by Neil Minturn in his book “The Last Waltz of the Band”: “…documentary will reflect some points of view as long as a filmmaker selects a subject and decides what to film and how to edit it. But recognizing the impossibility of “objective” documentary does not preclude striving for it” [68, p. 45] These examples show us that the documentary or nonfictional film could not be seen as the undistorted reflection of a real life. In order to examine the definition of documentary film more thoroughly, let us look back at the very first definition made by a pioneer of Scottish documentary John Grierson. He invented

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the word “documentary” and used it as an adjective while reviewing Flaherty‟s second film, “Mohana” in The New York Sun (February 8, 1926) [3, p. 151].

Speaking of the film, he mentioned then: “Of course, Moana being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, has documentary value” [42, p. 3]. Later Grierson‟s definition of documentary became “the creative treatment of actuality” [42, p. 4], where words “creativity” and “treatment” show the inevitable involvement and influence of the filmmaker on the process of creating reality documented in the film. On this point, Bill Nichols, American theoretician of documentary film comments in his study on the documentaries that “creative treatment” mentioned by Grierson suggests the license of fiction, whereas “actuality” reminds us of the responsibilities of the journalist and historian” [7, p.

6]. He also stresses that “it is certainly possible to argue that documentary film has never had a very precise definition” [7, p. 6].

In his study on documentary film nature, professor Carl Rollyson gives to it a definition associated with the press, calling it “a form of reporting about the world”. He pays attention to the idea that, “like a newspaper, documentary film provides information about events, people, places and virtually any subject of interest to the public” [11, p. 1] One may find it curious that the association between the documentary film genre and the newspaper has been stated much earlier by a soviet public figure and agitator Platon Kerzhentsev, who wrote in 1919 about a newsreel importance in society that it is extremely popular among the people because it is, “same as a newspaper, tells about the latest news and issues the most interesting for everybody at this very moment” [95, p. 102]. Rollyson underlines that watching a documentary make us feel like we are absorbing a presentation of facts, while actually documentaries as well as newspapers are merely the acts of interpretation [11, p. 1].

To accomplish this statement, we will mention the idea from the book “Documentary Film – a Very Short Introduction”, whose author Patricia Aufderheide rejects the necessity of totally objective portraying of the facts in a

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non-fictional film. The more important expectation of Aufderheide about the documentary film is that it should be “a fair and honest representation of somebody‟s experience of reality” [70, p. 3].

If the total objectivity of a depicted reality doesn‟t seem to be the only purpose of a documentary film then it is possible to find out its position in our society through the purposes it serves today.

1.2

Functions of a documentary film

Paul Rotha underlines the changed role of a documentary film in comparison with the way it has been seen traditionally, stating in his work “Some principles of Documentary” that the documentary method became more complex than it was presented traditionally. He writes: “No longer is it the mere pictorial description of things and people and places of interest. Observation alone is not enough… The essential purposes of documentary lie in the ends applied to this observation.

Conclusions must be indicated and the results of observation must be put across in a manner that demands high creative endeavor” [26, p. 244].

In order to perceive the changed role of a documentary film since its emergence, let us take a look at the first documentaries and compare them to the modern ones.

Starting with the earliest documentary films, first of all we must admit their observational nature; though this characteristic was denied as significant by Paul Rotha in the meaning of modern documentary films, this function has been the most important one for a long period of time. Observation is the characteristic which is considered to be the indication of the “purest” style of documentary, where observation outruns interpretation [78, p. 21]. But this idea should not only be examined as a main characteristic, but also as a main function of the earliest non-fiction films. If to ignore mentioned earlier staged moments in Flaherty‟s “Nanook of the North”, we may consider this film as an example of pure observation not only of Nanook‟s life, but also unseen by most of the viewers Arctic nature and landscapes. Speaking of this film, Paul Rotha and another

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filmmaker/theorist Basil Wright argued about the significant effect of Flaherty‟s film because the filmmaker used “the acute power of observation and the allowing of material to shape its own meaning” [87, p. 102].

Projiko mentions that in the beginning of the 20th century observation was the main topic in newsreels of French, American, English chroniclers, and the same tendency was actual in a pre-revolutionary Russia, where most of the newsreels of that period were dedicated to the subject of observation [95, p. 67].

The author takes notice of the fact that in Russian documentary practice during those years not only the distant Russian and foreign lands became the subject of a film observation, but “the interest was paid to ALL displays of reality which haven‟t been presented on the screen yet” [95, p. 67]. Interesting is Projiko‟s idea about the role of the screen in the life of a usual human – according to the author, those first newsreels had started to collect the entire picture of the world, creating “personal experience of the world exploration” [95, p. 68], and became the main form of reality observation which was received by the viewer at the beginning of the 20th century.

Grierson wrote in 1932 about the importance of films that allow us to observe life itself, using real people who could help others to interpret the world and real stories [70, p. 35]. The observational function had the second wave of popularity in 1960s in the United States, and many documentary films of that period were marked as observational documentaries, and gained a remarkable popularity [13, p. 1]. As Nichols writes about the observational documentaries, these films with noticeable voice-over narrations and synchronous sound are frequently marked as “the exhaustive depiction of the everyday” [8, p. 39]. He also pays attention to the Leni Riefenstahl‟s documentary “Triumph of the Will” disregarded by many film theoreticians because of its propagandistic usage. Bill Nichols regards this film as one of the earliest examples of observational documentaries [7, p. 283].

Having mentioned the propagandistic connotation of “Triumph of the Will”, we are moving to the second function of a documentary film, which was developed

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and became extremely important in the periods of both World wars. Then documentaries started being seen as a powerful tool of propaganda, and their propagandistic function was being used both officially and under “educational” slogans. Thus, in 1914 – 1916 there was a significant shift in the direction of using newsreels as a source of agitation and propaganda. Then, according to Projiko, the central topic of most film chronicles became not the real situation at the frontline, but the representation of Russian army power, generals‟ wisdom, soldiers‟ bravery and so on [95, p. 91]. After the October revolution and tzar‟s displacement Lenin proclaimed his famous statement “Cinema, for us, is the most important of the arts” [91, p. 164]. The way he was going to use cinema can be clearly understood through the main cinema purpose the Soviet leader stated, that is “the broadly informative chronicle should be chosen accordingly, which means it must become pictorial political journalism, similar to the course chosen by our best soviet newspapers” [94, p. 63].

Lenin wrote in his book “The most important of the arts” about specific newsreels of propagandistic and educational nature which had to be chosen for demonstration of Western life examples, such as “the colonial policy of England in India, League of Nations‟ work, Berlin‟s starving and so on” [91, p. 37]. But it would be incorrect to say that the propagandistic function of documentary films was topical only in the Soviet Union. A similar situation occurred to American, English, Japanese and German chronicles – in the war period each of them was trying to perform agitation, the ideologically obvious function [95, p. 209]. There is an important idea that viewers‟ interest in documentary films, especially those of propagandistic nature was arisen in

the newsreels depicting the events on a

battlefront. Julien Bryan writes about war-period newsreels that “no documentary formula had as many mixed blessings from World War II as did the newsreels” [9].

Thus, the example of such popularity is “Battle of the Somme” (1916), the Britain‟s First World War propagandistic documentary film, which succeeded by the British audience in the cinema largely because it showed actual battle footage

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[70, p. 65]. Though, the vivid audience‟s interest in similar films decreased as soon as its attitude towards war had changed [69, p. 239].

The propagandistic attitude towards documentary films was also exercised by those filmmakers, who firstly were concentrated on other documentary implementation. For example, Grierson, who was cited earlier, was observed in his shifted position “from formulating an aesthetic for documentary in the early thirties to concentration on propaganda in the late thirties and first half of the forties” [43, p. 319]. Thus, in 1934 he became a producer of the British documentary “The Song of Ceylon” – the film which is despite its high-level aesthetics [81, p. 94] is seen by others as an example of western capitalism propaganda [6, p. 96].

In Germany propagandistic content of non-fiction films became the core idea of the Ministry of Propaganda with Goebbels on its top. The propaganda minister used the newsreels “to give the German nation a false sense of security” [27, p. 282].Coming back to the German documentary “Triumph of the Will”, we face “one of the most infamous propaganda films of all time” [70, p. 9]. Despite its bad reputation, this film could also be seen as an example of that period‟s cooperation between the filmmaker, who wants to make a great film “of emotional power but free of propagandistic intent”, and the ruling party (in this example – Nazi Party), which makes a pressure on a filmmaker in order to generate a propagandistic positive image on the country‟s rulers [7, p. 94]. Both newsreels and feature documentaries were seen as the important leverage of power in the period of war: “Produced, directed and distributed by filmmakers and government agencies all committed to patriotic and propagandistic excellence, newsreels enjoyed an enormous popularity with mass audiences” [27, p. 282].

Seeing a documentary film as a propagandistic tool in the hands of a state, we should also take into account that the idea described as propaganda by one group of people could also be named as “education”, and sometimes the line between these two terms is far too thin. To understand this issue better, let us examine the ideas of Grierson, who himself made a significant shift in reviewing the role of a non-fiction film from an observational to propagandistic and finally –

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educational function. He asserted in 1942 that “the documentary idea was not basically a film idea at all” but “a new idea for public education” [70, p.35]. In spite of a strong connection between documentaries and propaganda at that time, and Grierson‟s endorsement to use techniques similar to those Nazi used, he found the explanation for his thoughts: “You can be „totalitarian‟ for evil and you can also be „totalitarian‟ for good” [70, p.35]. Actually, he didn‟t make a significant separation between education and propaganda, stating that propaganda was really a form of education, “in fact the only useful form of education in the modern world” [76, p. 100]. Grierson made a connection between propaganda, education and the state. His idea was that since “documentary filmmaking at its best was propaganda”, “propaganda was a form of education”, and the state is free to control the educational system according to its own purposes, the conclusion about the documentary filmmaking was that “the state should also direct documentary filmmaking and should extend its efforts in this realm” [48]. Thus, in England documentarists‟ work became another useful source of information for permanent and extensive systems of public education [71, p. 161].

Analyzing the evolution of non-fictional films in English-speaking world, the opinions are expressed about its positive development with shifting from propagandistic to educational potential. We find the thought that with time documentaries became “more impartial and less nationalistic, but more political, more values-conscious, more subtle in their interpretation, less afraid of criticizing authority and more ready to identify ideology and evaluate it” [61, p. 333].

Today the importance of educational function of documentaries can scarcely be overestimated, if to take into account the popularity of many TV-channels, such as Discovery or National Geographic, which mainly produce documentaries, becoming an important educational resource in different countries [84, p. 338].

Today a documentary film as a learning tool is also important in the sense of showing a distant reality locally, and proper use of this tool “may have tangible advantages over more traditional forms of source materials” [52, p. 119].

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As well as the propagandistic function of documentaries gradually evolved into the educational one, we may presume that education itself is not the final level of its implementation. Education as mere receiving of information means nothing until it is used for changes in our society, so-called social awakening of each new personality. Again mentioning Grierson, let us pay our attention to his words that a non-fictional film “might start by giving information about the modern world but its main function was to involve the citizen in the general social process” [43, p.

341]. This idea of social involvement contains in itself another important function of a documentary – a social function, which might be divided into two important parts. The first part shows the first stage of implementing the social function and could be described as a social awareness.

Providing information about important issues of the modern world today is a duty which is entrusted to a considerable degree to modern documentary filmmakers. Documentary films “provide the opportunity for people to sit down and learn from the views expressed by others in the film… They present documentations on social, economic, political, intellectual and cultural problems in society” [85, p. 173]. “Above all, documentary must reflect the problems and realities of the present” – writes about the modern major role of documentaries Daniel Talbot. He rejects as dangerous those documentaries in which there is an attempt “to prophesy the future” made, he admits their usage for telling about the past, but only within the scope of necessity “to give point to a modern argument” through presenting its development in the past [26, p. 245].

The development of documentary movement in ex-Soviet countries in the period of perestroika also represents the rise and development of a social function in the non-fictional cinema: “The content of documentary film-actions is more and more strongly attracted towards rejection of real facts and phenomena fixation, and prefers to reveal the semantic potential of the present life being observed and people acting in its reality” [95, p. 364].

As soon as social awareness is risen, activation of the 2nd part of a social function contained in a documentary begins. We are speaking about social

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involvement, which today often takes place as a result of recognized social issues presented in many documentary films as well. Such involvement does not necessary mean a viewer‟s immediate physical action , but shows that the influence of a film doesn‟t end at the moment when the film reaches its final. People‟s involvement caused by this or that documentary starts the moment they begin asking questions concerning the topic of the film. The difference between a documentary and most of the feature films is in the absence of definite final because the topic does not usually come to its outcome in the end. Such films are very thought-provoking, because many of them “do not provide the viewers with any definite answers and/or solutions to problems, but are provocative enough to get men and women searching for answers” [85, p. 173].

In the introduction to the symposium held in American University and dedicated to the modern forms and functions of a documentary film, a crucial point was stated: “Documentaries are no longer conventionally perceived as a passive experience intended solely for informal learning or entertaining. Instead, with ever increasing frequency, these films are considered part of a larger effort to spark debate, mold public opinion, shape policy, and build activist network” [63, p. 450].

According to the authors, sociopolitical documentaries are able both to inform and engage the electorate. The importance of documentary film in social activation was shown in the results of an experiment conducted by communication researchers Heather LaMarre and Kristen Landerville on the Ohio State University students.

They showed the students two films on the same topic of the Rwandan genocide.

The first film was the “Hotel Rwanda”motion picture and the second one – the documentary “Triumph of Evil”. The researchers compared students‟ perception and their level of learning after each film, and gained the results showing stronger emotional and educational effect of a documentary film [63, p. 453]. The researchers also concluded that “documentaries, as a form of political information, have the potential to strongly influence public opinion” [35].

Activist organizations are also using or/and

creating their own

documentaries in order to pay attention to the topics they are fighting for. Thus, the

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idea of “video advocacy” is being promoted in recent years by such organizations as WITNESS [http://www.witness.org]. The members of this organization regard implementation of many actions supporting human rights using documentary footage as one of the important tools of their campaigns. They define video advocacy as “the use of video as a change-oriented tool for human rights advocacy” [106]. Such documentary films as “Takeover” (1990) and “Taylor‟s campaign” (1997) are the examples of documentaries about homeless people in a wide range of films concerning this issue. The second mentioned film is the result of common work of a documentarist Richard Cohen and an activist Ron Taylor, who was followed by the filmmaker in his campaign supporting homeless people [18, p. 290] Another example of a strong influence on society is the American film “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), focusing on a global climate change. Due to mentioning the most „inconvenient‟ ecological issues concerning global warming and a vivid presentation by a narrator – the former U.S. Vice President Albert Gore, the film “quickly became an important touchstone for environmental debate as it attempted to balance scientific warnings with concrete actions audiences could take to avoid an impending global crisis” [64, p. 91]. This film became popular not only among environmentalists, but was also completely accepted by the wide audience. This example of broad-based appeal works as an example of possibility for documentaries to achieve their influence “through mass education and perhaps even mass mobilization of the general public”, though usually the best way for spreading importance of activist documentary films remains some specific ways, such as spreading “within the relevant activist organizations and within the issue network of which they are a part” [63, p. 454].

Speaking of documentary film functions, we are finally moving to the function which has been present in non-fictional films since their earliest examples and is still treated very often as “inappropriate” in the films telling us about the reality. Michael Renov, a documentary expert specializing in contemporary documentary filmmaking, sorted out one of the four important roles of a

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documentary film, which was “to express”. In other words, he was telling about the aesthetic function of making something beautiful out of aesthetic footage [66, p.

21]. There have always been strong tensions concerning the idea that “objects of the real world („the real things‟) (re)presented with few or no embellishments, cannot be beautiful in the sense of being aesthetically refined or pleasing” [5, p.

20]. This idea over a long period of time was treated as the measurement of documentary truthfulness: “whenever documentary expression approached art too closely, its claim to truth and thus its legitimacy has been compromised” [5, p. 20].

Renov also pays attention to this position, mentioning the irreconcilability of a beautiful form and a documentary task of historical representation [66, p. 24]. But he insists on aesthetic implementation of a non-fictional film, taking notice of the several earliest documentaries as the examples of using expressivity and “poetic language” as well as an authentic historical representation, giving as an example such films as “Nanook of the North” (“Most people agree that Robert Flaherty was the documentary film‟s first poet”) and the cycle of “city symphony” films of the twenties (“Man with a Movie Camera” (1929), “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” (1926), “A propos de Nice” (1930)) [65, p. 83].

Moreover, if we analyze again the cited earlier definition of the documentary stated by Grierson – documentary is “the creative treatment of actuality” [42, p. 4] – this time we will pay a closer attention to the word “creative”, and notice the idea of an aesthetic theory of a documentary film, which was developed by Grierson as well. Alan Rosenthal and John Corner in the book “New challenges for documentary” recall classical documentary films “Song of Ceylon” and “Listen to Britain” as the examples of works where the aesthetic approach played a vital role for the perception of films by the audience. Though the authors underline the challenges for modern television documentaries, stating that “a good deal of nonfictional television is not particularly interested in offering itself as an aesthetic experience anyway” [2, p. 49].

On the other hand, we find another example of an aesthetic function importance in a documentary film through the idea of better perception of a more

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beautifully made film regardless its non-fictional nature: “…aesthetic concern is not absent from scientific or documentary films, and it tends to transform the bare object into an object for contemplation” [44, p. 78]. Looking for pure examples of aesthetical realization in modern documentary films, we especially must take into account such films as “Baraka” (1992) and “The Qatsi Trilogy” (three experimental documentaries made by Godfrey Reggio in 1983, 1988 and 2002), which lay in the dimension defined by Nichols as documentaries of “poetic mode” [14, page 26]. These experimental films, often treated as an example of art production are also considered as documentaries reflecting the real world around us.

The expert of film editing Ken Dancyger finds even more possibilities for an aesthetic expression in a documentary than in a dramatic film [53, p. 305]. He points at such famous documentary films, as Leni Riefenstahl‟s “Olympia” (1938) and Humphrey Jennings‟ “Listen to Britain” (1942), where the filmmakers ignored some basic ideas of the film structure in order to maintain its aesthetical content.

Thus, Jennings decided to omit interviews in his documentary and instead “…selected a freer presentation of the images and the message of the film. This aesthetic choice influenced everything else in the film” – writes Dancyger [53, p.

306].

To summarize, let us move back to Renov‟s perception of an aesthetic function of a documentary film. Despite all declarations against the expressive art approach towards a non-fiction film, he states that the communication between a viewer and a film increases with the increase of its aesthetic component. “In the end, the aesthetic function can never be wholly divorced from the didactic one insofar as the aim remains “pleasurable learning” [66, p. 35].

1.3 How the Internet changes attitude towards documentaries In 2002 a Godfrey Reggio‟s documentary “Naqoyqatsi” was released. This experimental film became the last part of the “Qatsi” trilogy, mentioned earlier in chapter 1.2, and was described in several reviews as “a visual symphony” [40],

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“revolutionary” film [39] and so on. The occupation of modern life with technologies, the international globalization and computerization – these topics, criticized by Reggio, became the leading ones in “Naqoyqatsi”. The controversial point in this situation, however, was the fact that the scenes described in this documentary became possible to be made only thanks to these technologies – “Reggio uses the most high-tech means to deliver a cautionary commentary on high technology” [114]. This film is one of many examples of changes which came into the world of documentary filmmaking with the technological innovations we are facing today.

Technological changes have always played a vital role in the development and changes of a documentary genre: “The documentary form has evolved with technological possibilities… Digitalization and the Internet once again modify and transfigure possibilities and opportunities” [70, p. 124-125]. As Nichols notices, “New technological possibilities often play a significant role”[7, p. 159]. Really, now we are witnessing the new boom in a documentary production, and this time we are speaking not only about recognized professional filmmakers, who obviously add to their armory technological achievements of last decades but also about those who may not have a film education but want to share their view on the world and choose a documentary genre for this purpose. Thus, such events as the appearance and spreading of small DV and digital cameras, high-quality and easyto-use editing software, usable even on laptops, as well as all-around access to Internet are all “giving voice to documentary makers who have never before been heard” [42, p. 328].

In this subsection we are not going to criticize the technology boom and negative sides of our immersion into digitalized world, as it was done in “Naqoyqatsi”. Instead, let us take a look at the influence of one of the main achievements of a technology age – the Internet – on a documentary film today.

In a series of theory books about documentary filmmaking of the last decade authors mention Internet as a tool empowered to change the face of a documentary film production forever. The Iinternet “modifies and transfigures possibilities and

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opportunities”, becoming a new platform for promotion and distribution of documentary films [32], [70, p. 124]. Together with other technological advances, it is creating something new out of the full documentary film conception, spawning “a wave of documentary work that promises to alter many basic assumptions about the form” [7, p. 159]. Documentary filmmakers discuss the possibilities of distribution feature documentaries using the Internet – a source which yet has to be explored: “The elephant in the room is the internet. No one has figured how to successfully stream long form documentaries, either technically or in terms of a revenue stream for it yet. It appears to be around the corner, but it‟s a big corner” [29, p. 19]. Internet is involved in the process of producing a documentary from the earliest stages - even when the film exists only in a documentarist‟s mind, the site devoted to the future film can already be launched and start providing both an audience and a film crew with information, help raising funds and so on. Today most working documentarists and many individual films have their own Web sites [42, p. 328]. While the idea of the film distribution of a documentary exceptionally via the Internet still remains unrealistic in most cases, there already occur situations when such a distribution is the most appropriate. Thus, a famous Byelorussian documentarist Yuri Khashchevatsky, who is famous for his films criticizing Russian and Byelorussian official authorities (“Kalinovski Square” (2007), “Lobotomiya” (2010) etc.), expressed his admiration for the Internet as a trusted source of his documentary distribution. In his interview in 2007 he stated that his anti-governmental films were able to reach their audiences “only thanks to the videopiracy and the internet” [38].

Though this example shows the extreme conditions of an internet usage for video distribution, today we are facing a tendency of a significant increase in internet video popularity, as well as watching documentaries via the Internet. So, what modern ways of a documentary films distribution via the Internet do we have today? Of course, a possibility to buy a DVD-disk after ordering it on the site has been in use for a long period of time, but it is not the central topic of this subsection. What is more interesting for our research is the possibility of direct

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documentary view / downloading from different sites, and here are much more than one option existing.

First of all, let us analyze official sources for such actions. In this case a term “official source” means that all the documentaries presented on the internet-site are placed there without any author‟s rights violations. In other words, placing of every film on these sites is coordinated with its‟ video owners and brings them some revenue from every view etc. Often such videosites are maintained by specific TV-channels or governmental institutions, such as the site of the National Film Board of Canada http://www.nfb.ca, where more than 1500 documentaries in English and French are available online without any additional conditions. Another example of a documentary film source is a Russian site MagazinDoc (http://www.magazindoc.ru) – yet the first and the only legal Russian internetsource of licensed documentaries. The owners of the source emphasize that the site content is strictly selected and consists of the most significant Russian documentaries of the XX and XXI centuries. The films on this site are on sale for the price up to 2 euro, and after payment they are available for downloading and further private use. As it is mentioned on the site, the money received for each film goes to the rightholders of the films presented in the online cinema. Interesting is the site strategy – it is written there that “there are no illusions about commercial success of the project”, instead the site is claimed to be important “in ethical way”, because it gives an opportunity for everybody not to use piratic content, but to make an intelligent choice and not just download “or simply steal others‟ intellectual property”

available throughout dozens of other sites providing the

same videos illegally [105].Another distinctive characteristic of this web-source is the absence of advertisements, which are essential for existence of other legal online documentary sources, where films are available free of charge. The example of such site is an American project SnagFilms (http://www.snagfilms.com/). The SnagFilms source is an example of a website which offers advertising-supported documentary films. It provides viewers with free access to more than 2000 feature and short documentaries, and each documentary starts with a video advertisement

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up to a minute-length. The site was started in July, 2008 with the initiative of Ted Leonsis, who expressed his willingness to solve the problem of documentary film distribution using the Internet [46]. The site isn‟t open to a user-generated content; instead professionally produced videos must be submitted and accepted. The SnagFilms platform provides space both for starting documentarists and more famous filmmakers – for example, on the site one of the most popular [103] American documentaries “Super-Size Me” (2004) directed by Morgan Spurlock is available officially. Not only can viewers watch the documentaries free, but also they are allowed to use documentaries presented on the snagfilms.com – there is a possibility to share them on blogs, websites and personal pages on Facebook and MySpace. An independent film distributor Bob Alexander calls SnagFilms a "brilliant" use of the Internet to reach people. "Getting 500,000 people into a theater to see your work is extremely difficult, if not impossible," he says. "But on the Internet, it can happen easily" [46].

A remarkable official European source of online films is the project onlinefilm.org. The motto of the site is “films are made to be seen”, that reflects the idea standing behind this source. Both fictional and non-fictional films of German and European filmmakers are presented on the site, which is defined as “a legal distribution platform for the low-cost distribution and marketing of German and European films via the internet” [73, p. 413]. The owners of the site underline that their project is “the only portal of its kind owned by filmmakers where films are offered directly to the viewers for a fair price” [99]. On this site films cannot be viewed online, the principle of its work is similar to the one used by MagazinDoc, mentioned earlier – you choose the film, pay for it and then receive the link for downloading. The fundamental difference between the Russian and German sources is that the second one is created by filmmakers, who themselves publish their films on the site and fix the price (usually up to 5 Euro for a film), so the second source could be defined as a “filmmakers-generated content”.

Moving to another way of access to documentary films via the Internet, we will examine such a possibility as sites dedicated to online-viewing without

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observance of the author‟s rights. These sites could be described as aggregators of video from popular video sharing services – such as youtube.com, vimeo.com, Google Video and so on. The important feature of such sites is that they usually inform of not being responsible for the embedded video and express an agreement to move video from the site in case its authors demand to do so. That is why links to documentary films are quite often broken and instead of free online watching you can only read a message such as “The film has been removed” or “We are sorry, no embeddable videos are currently selected for this player”.

The site http://www.dokumentarfilm24.de/ is a German example of such a service, fully dedicated to documentaries – it is a private collection of documentaries found in the Internet as it is informed by the author of the source. In Ukraine there are many similar projects. The most common are the sites which allow watching documentaries among other genres, but there are also sources dedicated only to documentaries – for instance, http://docvideo.in.ua/. The latter provides the users with the possibility to download films after accepting the rules concerning the author‟s rights in Ukraine.

It is not out of place to mention such a social network as Vkontakte.ru as the source of many documentaries online. Various thematic groups in the network provide their members with thousands of documentary films online uploaded by the users without any observance of the author‟s rights. These videos are not situated in video sharing services such as Google video or YouTube, and are usually available without any technical problems or additional requirements.

Another example of watching free online documentaries uploaded by their authors with no viewing fee is the sites where young or independent filmmakers show their works to others. Such an approach is in use, for instance, at the video platform http://mubi.com/garage, where the newest films, as well as documentaries are published in order to raise awareness of the authors and their works.

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1.4 The Internet influence on new forms of documentary films and viewers‟ behavior The Internet development causes not only the new possibilities for spreading of documentary films worldwide, but also plays an important role in appearance of brand-new attitudes towards the form of a documentary film. Patricia Aufderheide pays attention to the innovations we face today and the technology influence in the documentary perception: “New technologies vastly increase the volume of production under the rubric of documentary. This volume may create new subgenres or may eventually force rethinking. When political operatives, fourth graders, and product marketers all make downloadable documentaries, will we redraw parameters around what we mean by “documentary”?” [70, p. 127].

The Internet influence on the documentary form results in emergences of new ways the documentary film can be presented. Thus, the term “web documentary” or “webumentary” has appeared recently as a description of special “non-linear”, or even encompassing “multiple linear narratives” [63, p. 63]. The winners of the first web-documentary prize given in 2009 at the International Festival Visa pour l‟Image for the web-documentary “The Imprisoned Body” stated: “The Web documentary format is still a work in progress. It‟s a world of great possibilities” [111].

What distinguishes a web-documentary from more traditional forms is applying a full complement of multimedia tools, such as photography, text, audio, video, animation and infographics in one documentary work. What is even more important for this sub-genre is the requirement for the viewer to interact with, or navigate through the story. Thus, directed by Samuel Bollendorf and Olivia Colo “The big issue”, the web-documentary about the world problem of obesity, invites the audience not just to watch the film, but to “participate in a worldwide investigation” [102], allowing users to choose the way they will watch the film and even guide it somehow. Such an approach has become possible only on the base of modern tools provided by a computer and the Internet, and this documentary form is yet to be popularized among a documentary audience.

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Another example of the way the Internet influences on the idea of a documentary filmmaking is the emergence of so-called micro-documentaries. This type of documentary film is not very well known yet, though there are already companies popularizing micro-documentaries. The definition of this type of films needs a tome to become more exactly, but main features of such films are their short length and a social-issue focus, and these options make the Internet the best way

for

spreading

them

among

people.

There

is

already

a

site

microdocumentary.com, fully specialized on production of documentary films with the length up to 3 minutes. These films are seen as the important help for purposeful companies and nonprofit organizations in their struggle for having greater impact with the issues they raise using “informative video narrative that was easy to e-mail and share with anyone” [113].

Davin Hutchins, the founder of an online production company NomadsLand Films, expressed an opinion about the possible high popularity of a microdocumentary form due to a modern attitude towards information: “I think the future with iPhones and iPads is really starting to move toward shorter-form content for people with attention spans who don't have a lot of time” [109].

Though he doesn‟t rejects the importance of full-length feature documentaries, he sees the micro-form as the best way for quicker spreading the ideas encompassed in every micro-documentary. The filmmaker believes that “whether you've put it on your YouTube channel or you've sent it out to bloggers, people can actually respond to it and pass it along with a tweet to their friends or on their Facebook pages, so the whole idea of passing short documentaries around like a baseball card to friends, that's kind of where I think the future is going” [109].

Both web-documentary and micro-documentary forms of a video documenting reality are the examples of how the Internet changes our perception and attitude towards documentary films. But the changes brought into the world of documentary films with the Internet concern not only the way in which these films are presented to the audience, but also the way in which the audience perceive and react to the documentaries.

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When we are speaking of a documentary film we should not talk only about its topic, form, idea or creator, but also have to remember another part of the process which evaluates the film, shows its real significance or simply ignores the message sent by filmmakers due to specific reasons. The audience‟s survey is necessary for understanding the direction of new films to be made, as well as for predicting the documentary film popularity and influence. A documentary film could be seen as a dialog between the filmmaker and the people who watch the film later, express their opinions about the film and therefore influence on the filmmaker‟s opinion and views. As Sobchack broadened this idea, “As much as documentary space points off-screen to the viewer‟s world, it is a space also “pointed to” by the viewer who recognizes and grasps that space as, in some way, contiguous with his or her own” [111]. The importance of taking a viewer into account shouldn‟t be ignored, as long as documentary is defined and redefined over the course of time, both by makers and by viewers. “Viewers certainly shape the meaning of any documentary, by combining our own knowledge of and interest in the world with how the filmmakers show it to us” [70, p.2]. Since modern documentaries not only let us observe, but also involve their viewers into the topic described in the film, as well as demand real actions, audience research becomes far more significant: “audience research is useful for examining the complex relationship between documentary text, audience and wider political contexts” [102, p. 134].

Today we should take into account the importance of using a new approach towards modern audience of documentaries: though their public life began in cinemas, they gradually moved to private places, and “it is important to bear in mind that viewing a film in an auditorium is a different experience to viewing it in one‟s home” [102, p. 142]. After the period when documentaries gradually became the part of the television content, we are now facing the all-around penetration of documentaries into the Internet, and “since the inception of the Internet, audiences have become even more difficult to define and measure” [102, p. 138].

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It is still difficult to understand the ways what the Internet audience should be analyzed in because of difficulties caused by anonymity and diversity of viewers in the Internet. Internet audience‟s taste is the sphere which will surely be scrutinized thoroughly as the source of important information about the new level of consumers both of video production and advertisements presented on most video sources. Viewing and comment figures on the Internet‟s larger sites such as Google and YouTube have yet to be analyzed in any meaningful way “as indicators of an audience‟s relationship with documentaries” [102, p. 138]. Some researchers of the modern situation around documentaries insist that it is necessary for documentarians to identify a “personal audience” and therefore “to craft work around the interests of this niche or identify a constituency passionate about a particular case or issue” [70, p. 21]. Such diversification becomes necessary with the shift from the past situation when only several channels translated documentaries in a specific time and viewers were able to choose the film to watch among few available to the modern times when video on demand, as well as online translation, have become the integral parts of modern life with the access to the Internet.

To summarize, let us highlight the importance of the Internet audience analyzing, especially of the younger part of it which takes for granted the Internet and makes it a part of everyday life – not only for playing games or blogging, but for exploring the world through watching documentaries as well. A new way of access to such films changes the attitude towards them, gives another form of expectation from each new film, as well as provides more possibilities for browsing and discussing on the films. Therefore on the next pages of this work we will examine the way young people interact with documentary films today, when the Internet “have spawned a wave of documentary work that promises to alter many basic assumptions about the form” [7, p. 159].

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2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

In order to obtain more reliable results, in the research presented in this work the triangulation and multimethod approaches were used. Triangulation implies that the researcher seeks primarily data about a research question in two (or more) different ways. Such an approach is often used in media audience research [72, p.

50]. The multimethod approach means that both qualitative and quantitative methods used in the research were equally significant for collecting research data.

Each of them was concentrated on different research questions and together they created the full scene of studentsâ€&#x; perception of the documentary film genre and their perception of different media sources of documentary films with the significant emphasis on the Internet as the newest and less examined media source.

The two studies corroborated each other, and the final conclusion is based on both parts of the research procedure.

The process of collecting data for this research has started in November 2010 and lasted until May 2011. The research itself can be divided in two parts: collecting data using the qualitative method of focus groups and collecting answers for the questionnaire survey as a quantitative method.

As it was mentioned in the preface, participants from Ukraine and Germany took part in this study. These were the students of German and Ukrainian universities aged 18 – 25. As for the additional filters for each method used in the research, they will be explained below.

The data analysis is provided in the form of comparison between the results received in Ukraine and Germany. This is made in order to show main differences and similarities of viewersâ€&#x; preferences and attitudes as well as to sort out the categories which are important without reference to the country where the respondents study and/or live.

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In order to understand the importance of using the chosen methods in the research, let us look closer at the specific characteristics of the research methods, as well as specific points related to the design of both studies.

2.1.1 The Internet questionnaire survey –theoretical background While qualitative methods are ideal for exploring attitudes, meanings and perceptions on an individual basis, questionnaires have their own advantages. The questionnaire survey has been one of the most popular quantitative research methods of audience studies so far. It is also one of the most widely used methods of media research, primarily due to its flexibility [74, p. 49]. A questionnaire is a highly structured means of collecting information from respondents, and questionnaires usually are self-administered. Such a survey is a more convenient way of gathering data from large numbers of people. Questionnaire surveys have been frequently used in media management research. For example, in 2002 a research of the development of television industry in Taiwan involved the use of a questionnaire survey [1, p. 560]. Another example of the questionnaire survey use is the study conducted in 1990 in Germany among German television viewers in search of their attitude towards portrayal women on television [60, p. 131] Questionnaire survey is also used for analyzing the internet audience. More detailed information about this kind of survey will be provided later in this chapter, but it is not out of place to mention the survey made by The Oxford Internet Institute as the example of questionnaire survey which is broadly used in analyzing the audience of different kinds of media. The “Oxford Internet Survey� which first took place in 2003 and was carried out by door-to-door interviewing of approximately two thousand British people about their internet usage, is an example of the audience research project fully based on the questionnaire method.

It is conducted three times each two years (and the results of the 2011 Survey will be published in summer 2011 [98]). This research tries to give researchers a picture of how, why, when and how many people actually use the Internet [50, p .89].

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The main advantages of the questionnaire method which make it so popular for media research are its simplicity in organizing and cheapness of the administrative costs, it is also easy to analyze the results of a questionnaire.

Questionnaires provide the means to gather and record simple information on the incidence of attitudes, meanings and perceptions among the population as a whole [4, p. 232]. Questionnaires are useful for gaining an overall picture of a research issue, especially where the theory in the relevant area is not well developed [62, p.81]. In the process of research an absolute “objectivity” is hard to reach, but questionnaires make the information received during the survey more transparent for further interpretation; they make the exact results be seen easier; and it is also makes visible the way of analyzing and interpreting these results.

Questionnaires are written in many different ways, to be used in many different situations and with many data-gathering media. Each of the types of data collection media provides its own opportunities for every specific situation, but each of them also has their own drawbacks [37, p. 22].

There are 6 main types of questionnaire surveys. They are: Household or social survey – here people are selected on the basis of where they live and are interviewed at their home.

Street survey – people are selected by stopping in street, in shopping malls, etc.

Telephone survey – questions are asked using the phone.

Mail, or postal survey – questionnaires are sent and received by mail.

Captive group survey – members of groups such as classes of children, members of a club or employees of the same company are surveyed.

Web-based survey – users of a specific site (internet service) are surveyed on-site, sometimes this type is also referred to as “internet survey” [4, p. 233].

Describing the way each questionnaire should be presented in, we cannot say there is a single possible way to design and format a questionnaire. Usage of different media in the process of conducting a questionnaire survey means different general attitudes towards organizing such surveys. For example, a long preface is

34

inappropriate at the beginning of a telephone survey, but providing a respondent with a preface in the paper- or web-based survey is important for better understanding the questions. That is why here we will describe the points important for appropriate implementation of a web-based survey – this kind of questionnaire was used in our research. Recommendations for organizing a webbased survey could also be used for a paper-based survey as far as Donald Dillman, the author of the practical book “Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailor Design Method” recommends to treat a web-based questionnaire as a paper-based questionnaire. As Dillman states, the web-based questionnaire is good to start with a motivational welcome screen, which emphasizes the ease of responding as well as instructs users how to proceed. Present and initial question must be interesting and easy for respondent to answer and should not require any scrolling [34, p. 20].

Dillman also recommends numbering questions so that the respondent understands where the question begins and where it ends [34, p. 21]. However, the last advice works in case when the questionnarie has a linear structure, while in case of ommiting some of its parts after the specific answers to specific questions, it is better to leave questions unnumbered.

The structure of both the simple and the professional survey, according to other sources, should consist of questions of two sections: 1. A demographic section – in which respondents give information about themselves relevant to the project, including the standart demographic information about age and gender.

2. An information/attitude section – in this section people answer the questions importatnt exactly for the research project [59, p. 78].

It should be noted that that question sequence can be very important for the success of a survey. The opening questions should be designed to capture respondents‟ interest and keep them involved, while personal questions should be postponed to the middle or the end of the questionnaire. General questions should precede specific ones[90, p. 380].

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Also in addition to recommendations mentioned above, we should take into account the importance of so-called “filter questions”, which are useful for avoiding unnecessary questions that do not apply to a particular respondent. In other words, a filter question is a question whose answer determines which question the respondent goes next to [21, p. 170]. Using a filter question is also very helpful when a questionnaire seems to be too complicated, and respondent should be guided through the form [21, p. 171].

Speaking of the last mentioned type of questionnaire – the Internet-based survey we should mention that it becomes more and more popular today, which could be explained by several factors. Clark and Adler in their book focused on the social research mark Internet-based questionnaire as, on the one hand, very inexpensive and time efficient method, which can be completed at respondent‟s leisure, on the other – it is seen as a research tool available not for all segments of the people and providing a low response rate [23, p. 380]. Among these and other points related to the Internet-based questionnaires first of all we should take the Internet into account as a vast new arena in which it is convenient to conduct social science research. The online interactions of people represent yet another setting in which human beings engage each other, and these interactions often are readily accessible and convenient to researchers [21, p. 70]. Online questionnaires can provide many capabilities not found in traditional paper-based questionnaires. For example, they could include pop-up instructions and error messages; they can incorporate links; and it is possible to encode difficult skip patterns, making such patterns virtually invisible to respondents [82, p.44] When speaking in detail of the main advantages of the Internet research, there are several points strengthening the importance of the Internet in the sphere of mass media researches to be mentioned:  Internet researches are easy to conduct. Once a researcher understands the process, a project can be designed and available in only a few hours for respondents on the Internet anywhere in the world.

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 Questionnaires can be changed almost immediately if a change is required, especially if a researcher works without an Internet research company. The ability to change questionnaires quickly saves time and money in comparison to the situation when the same actions are required in telephone surveys or mail surveys. In some cases, changes cannot be made in the other approaches once the study is under way.  Costs for data collection and data analysis are substantially reduced or almost eliminated if an Internet research company is not used.  Each respondent can proceed at his or her own speed and can read questions several times if necessary. In addition, many software packages and Internet research companies include options to allow the respondent to complete the questionnaire in several sessions [83, p. 419]. Though the last point seems to be the one increasing the amount of answers providing conditions impossible for other types of research, the possibility of returning a respondent to the survey after postponing it seems to be realistic only theoretically. In practice, there is little evidence that respondents leave a questionnaire whilst they think about it and return later [37, p. 31]. The convenience of the web-based research for the respondent results in improving the quality of data collected. Removed from the demand characteristics associated with the researcher‟s presence, individuals are free to decide whether or not they want to participate, and can participate at their own leisure [82, p. 21]. Thus, the „forced‟ research participation is removed and the researcher receives more profound answers.

Comparing paper self-completion questionnaires and the online surveys, the second option has a significant advantage: with web-questionnaires the questions are presented in the sequence researchers want them to be, while a disadvantage of a paper form is the respondents‟ possibility of looking ahead [37, p. 33]. Although the web-based questionnaire wins in comparison to a paper-based form if we speak of time and pleasure of completion for a respondent. Most studies of how people respond to web-based questionnaires have found that they are completed more quickly than their equivalent telephone or face-to-face administered versions.

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Even more, the web-based questionnaires are easy to be presented in a pleasurable for a respondent way, they “can be designed to have visual appeal, an equivalent level of which is often too costly to achieve with paper questionnaires” [37, p. 32].

Another important advantage of an Internet-based survey is the better possibility for receiving answers on more sensitive issues, which is often difficult to achieve while conducting a research using, for example, telephone survey, face-to-face interviews etc.

Despite the advantages of web-based questionnaires, there are still several important issues concerning the Internet usage for survey conducting. The most significant problem related to the Internet research relates to control over the research situation – researchers do not know who answers an Internet questionnaire. Wimmer and Dominick point that at present the only way to deal with this problem is to look at the data to search for outliers. They provide such an example: “if respondents are asked how many hours they watch TV each day and the average shows 3.5 hours, and a few respondents say “More than 15 hours” or something significantly different from the other respondents, the outliers can be dropped from the data. This does not mean that these people are lying because there is no way to know that, but at least dropping outliers will eliminate wide swings in the data” [83, p. 423-424]. Another indication of an outlier is a respondent who answers in the same way to several questions, such as rating everything a “5” in rating questions.

Despite the impossibility to reveal the identity of respondents answering the questions online, some reasons nevertheless add value to the web-based questioning. There are studies which suggest that, for some topics, people may be willing to be more honest online. Thus, a study in 2009 investigated the views of online community participants in Australia, New Zealand, China, and in Japan, and in both China and Japan the view from the participants was that it was easier to be honest online because they were less subject to social pressures [77, p. 113]. In addition to this point, evidence from Kelner and Basi supports the view that because there is no interviewer there is less social desirability bias and the

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respondents answer more honestly. This means that data on „threatening‟ questions, where respondents feel a need to appear to be socially acceptable, are likely to represent better how the survey population really feels [37, p. 32].

Moreover, some experts predict that online surveys will eventually replace other ways of survey administration [88, p. 149].

As far as the idea of the representation has been mentioned, it is necessary to take into account another issue – the uncertainty that the representativeness of Internet users appear to be approaching the general characteristics of most populations. As Wimmer and Dominick write about this issue, “there is currently no way to determine if the Internet sample is representative of the population from which the sample was selected or volunteered” [83, p. 424]. The authors add that the problem of representability relates to the problem, mentioned earlier – there is no way to determine who completed the survey.

The problems and possible faults that could accompany an internet-based questionnaire survey should be seen not as the reasons why not to use web for researches, but as points that are yet to be discovered in upgrading the new approach to the researching procedure. The Internet research is seen by some authors as the form that sooner or later “will probably become the primary data collection method used by researchers in all fields” [83, p. 426]. Until that time, the Internet research can be used as an adjunct approach to attempt or to support, or refute data collected with other methods. Speaking of the futute an additional feature that could improve the quality and give rise to popularity of this research type, is described by Wimmer and Dominick as the specific way of paying to respondents via some type of electronic cash [83, p. 426] There are several different ways of carrying surveys using the Internet. The main approaches are summarized by Bradle as follows:  Open web – a website open to anyone who visits it.  Closed web – respondents are invited to visit a website to complete a questionnaire.

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 Hidden web – the questionnaire appears to a visitor only when triggered by some mechanism (e.g. date, visitor number, interest in a specific page). This includes pop-up surveys.  E-mail URL embedded – a respondent is invited by e-mail to the survey site, and the e-mail contains a URL or web address on which respondents click.  Simple e-mail – an e-mail with questions contained in it.  E-mail attachment – the questionnaire is sent as an attachment to an e-mail [37, p. 30].

Despite the distinction made above, we should take into account that in the early days of the Internet-based survey research in the mid 1990-s, the term “Internet survey” was used as a collective term for all these different approaches. Since then, as Wright and Marsden write, “a narrower definition has become widely accepted, focusing exclusively on World Wide Web-based surveys” [41, p. 528]. Therefore, today we use the terms “Internet survey”, “Web survey” and “online survey” interchangeably.

In the process of creation a question form it is important to take into account several recommendations while writing a list of questions that will be used later in the survey. These recommendations influence on the quality of the data gathered, which depends great deal on:  The clarity with which the research question is formulated;  The extent to which the questions in the questionnaire are related to the research question;  The wording of the questions and their comprehensibility to the people answering;  The extent to which there are not prompted desired answers of the respondents caused by asking them leading questions [59, p. 80].

In the process of creating a questionnaire it is important to take into account the final length of the questionnaire – despite temptation to include as many thorough questions as possible, the researcher should also remember about the

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other side of the process – people who will answer these questions. Even those who agreed to take part in the research may be bored or dissatisfied with answering too much questions. This may cause respondents‟ unwillingness to finish the survey and result in their participation stopped abruptly without completing the form.

Therefore it is necessary to take into account who will be answering the questionnaire and bring it into correlation with the length of the questionnaire.

This is an important point in determining the survey‟s response rate. A common cause of a low response rate is an over-long questionnaire that looks timeconsuming or that becomes too tedious that people don‟t finish it. Davies and Mosdell underline that such a situation will undermine internal validity of the research, whereas it will also distort the sample, which will end up consisting only of very patient or under-emploed people, and that undermines external validity [59, p. 91]. On the other hand, the questionnnaire should not lose its research value by minimising and simplifying the questions included in it in order to make the answering as quick and simple as possible. For the reasonable compromise between the length of a questionnaire and its research value, according Davies and Mosdell next issues should be considered:  Only the necessary for the research demographic questions should be included in a questionnaire. It should be considered well in advance if there is a need to ask for that information which seems to have some vague meaning for the research.  Before creating the research it is necessary to define the most important research questions so that later it wouldn‟t be discovered that not all the areas of the research were covered with the questionnaire survey.  A great help in creating a sufficient and logical questionnaire is conducting a pilot survey that will show the weak points of the questions‟ design and content. Despite consuming time, a pilot survey can result in saving much more time in the process of analysing inappropriately organised information

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received after the unregulated survey made without a pilot stage [59, p. 9091].

The important issue, related to the questionnaire used in this project, is about conducting an international research using the Internet. Despite the attractiveness of the online research in terms of working across the international borders, there are some important points that need to be considered in this situation: 

The loss of local partners. Even in studies where there are no apparent

language issues, there can be cultural or generational issues that are not apparent when viewed from afar. 

The translational costs for online qualitative projects can be very high,

especially for asynchronous projects where the translation process tends to be small and often.

There can be a temptation to use English for too many projects. In most countries there are some people who speak English, or who can read and write English. It is often possible to run an international online qualitative project in English, but it is not always a good idea [77, p. 112].

On the other hand, the reduced cost of online international researches, as well as time savings, sometimes leaves no questions whether to do this research or not.

2.1.2 The Internet questionnaire design and participants The Internet questionnaire survey was conducted among the students with average age 18 – 25 years from German and Ukrainian universities in May 2011.

The Google Documents service was used for creating the questionnaire and conducting a survey. The survey questionnaire consisted of 3 main parts: the introduction with a filter question, the main part with 11 questions related to respondents‟ habits of watching documentaries using different media and the last demographical section was used for collecting of demographical data about the age and place of study of participants.

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The filter question at the beginning of a questionnaire was asking respondents how often they were watching documentary films. In case they answered the never watch such kind of films were asked to mention the reasons why they did not watch documentaries. After that, they were sent to the last demographical section without being asked the questions from the second section.

The questionnaire was first constructed in Ukrainian language and pre-tested on several Ukrainian students. After pilot completion of the form no questions were excluded, but there were added more detailed explanations of the way specific questions should be answered from the technical point of view. Also it has been considered the commentary of one of the test questionnaire respondent about the need to make the questions concerning usage of the Internet for watching documentaries optional for filling – for those respondents who do not use the Internet as a source of documentary films. This commentary has been taken into account and thereby in each question concerning the use of the Internet was added an option “I do not use Internet as a source of documentary film viewing/finding”.

The Ukrainian students filled the questionnaire In Ukrainian language, later both the answers and the questionnaire itself was translated into English and used for internet surveying of participants from Germany.

Search of participants has been organized using the Internet social services and the nonprobabilistic method of snowball sampling – the approach which have achieved increased use in observational researches and community studies [54, p.

96]. In this procedure, the researcher collects data on the few members of the target population and then asks those individuals to provide the information needed to locate other members of that population whom they happen to know [22, p. 205].

The term “snowball” stems from the analogy of a snowball, which begins small but becomes bigger as it rolls downhill. The main purpose of the survey was to collect and analyze quantitative data about students‟ attitude towards the Internet and television

as

main

sources

of

documentary

films

and

show

which

possibilities/disadvantages the respondents see in using the Internet as a source of documentary films. Also in a questionnaire was included a group of questions

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aimed to depict standard ways of usage Internet video in terms of forms, sources and attitude towards paid services.

Overall, 171 students have answered the survey questions, among them 114 participants from different cities of Ukraine and 57 participants from different cities of Germany. After the analysis of their answers 5 participants from the Ukrainian side and 7 participants from the German side were excluded as the inappropriate in terms of not being a student of any University at the time of filling the form. Though the selection could not be considered as representative because of amount of respondents.

2.2.1 The method of focus groups – the theoretical background For many years the qualitative method of focus groups has played a significant role in different spheres of research. It is an important research tool for applied social scientists who work in program evaluation, marketing, public policy, the health sciences, advertising and communications [19, p. 37]. They also have found its implementation in the shere of the media audience research, where participants are expected to be able to generate more or less immediate verbal accounts of their feelings and experiences [89, p. 360].

Defining the method of focus groups, let us look back at a 1962 work of A.E.Goldman, who differentiated group depth interviews from other techniques by examining the meaning of the three words in the name. He defined a group as “a number of interacting individuals having a community of interests”, as for the depth, it included “seeking information that is more profound than is usually accessible at the level of interpersonal relationships”, and the interview implies the presence of a moderating person who “uses the group as a device for eliciting information” [33].

As Stewart, Shamdasani, and Rook underline, the term focus in the full title simply implies that the interview is limited to a small number of issues. The authors also quote classical definition of group interviewing stated by G. H. Smith in 1954: “The term group interviewing will be limited to those situations when the

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assembled group is small enough to permit genuine discussion among all its members” [19, p. 37].

Briefly desribing the idea of a focus group, first of all we should mention its research strategy which consists in understanding audience / consumer attitudes and behaviour. A process of a focus group research is a situation when “a group of people are interviewed simultaneoulsly, with a moderator leading the respondents in a relatively free discussion about the focal topic” [74, p. 94]. The identifying characteristic of the focus group, according to Tayie, is controlled group discussion, which is employed to gathercliminary information for a research project, to help develop questionnaire items for a survey research, or to understand the reasons behind a particular phenomenon [74, p. 94]. Krueger defines a focus group as “a carefully planned discussion designed to obtain perceptions on a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment” [55, p. 6] Before looking at limitations and advantages of focus group methodology, let us consider some examples of research projects where this qualiative method was used. Litosseliti mentions several of numerous examples of this method usage within different areas of social studies, but as far as this work is concentrated on a media research relevant examples, in our situation there are two of them: exploring how media messages are processed / how the media affect audience‟s perceptions of HIV/AIDS; studying the audiences of popular action films, people‟s ways of talking about going to the cinema and the ways of their affection by social discources of action films [57, p. 13-14].

At present, the main methods of collecting qualitative data in the social sciences are a participant observation, which typically occurs in groups, and openended interviews, which typically occur with individuals. Morgan writes about the the specific position of a focus group as another qualitative method: “as group interviews, focus groups not only occupy an intermediate position between these other qualitative methods but also possess a distinctive identity of their own” [17, p. 8]. Developing his thought, Morgan insists on importance of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of focus groups through comparison between them and

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other qualitative methods. Comparing focus groups to participant observation, Morgan states that the main advantage of focus groups is “the opportunity to observe a large amount of interactions on a topic in a limited period of time based on the researcher‟s ability to assemble and direct the focus group session” [17, p.

8]. But in specific conditions this advantage of one method over another turns into a disadvantage: the moderator‟s control over a focus group also means that the conditions of a focus group environment create in some sense unnatural social settings. These point should be taken into account and analyzed each time the focus group is planned to be organized. It should be considered how important for the research the naturality of the situation is. Thus, “for purposes such as ethnography, focus groups may play a supplementary role, but they sertainly will not excel the possibilities participant observation as the primary tool for the investigartion of broad aspects of culture” [17, p. 10] – writes Morgan.

In comparison between focus groups and an interview technique Morgan sees the main difference between two qualitative methods in the ability of the focus group method to observe interactions on the topic. A group discussion is not possible in the process of an interview, while this process is important to provide direct evidence about the participants‟ opinions and experiences as opposed to reaching such conclusions from post hoc analyses of separate statements or from each interviewee [17, p. 10]. On the other hand, an interview has its advantage over the focus group method regarding more information for which each informant has time to share, as well as the biggest amount of control that the interviewer has.

A focus group research decreases time available for each participant to express an opinion on the topic; also it requires more attention to the moderator‟s role.

Nonetheless, there are many topics where the efficiency and depth of participant observation will be less worthy than the rapid data gathering provided by the focus group analysis.

Litosseliti marks out the main situations when the focus group method is useful:

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 Discovering new information (for example about a new product) and consolidating old knowledge (for example, examining people‟s habits);  Obtaining a number of different perspectives on the same topic, in participants‟ own words;  Gaining information on participants‟ views, attitudes, beliefs, responces, motivations and perceptions on a topic; „why‟ people think or feel the way they do;  Examining participants‟ shared understanding of everyday life, and the everyday use of language and culture of particular groups;  Brainstorming and generating ideas, with participants discussing different angles of a problem, and possibly helping to identify solutions;  Gaining insights into the ways in which individuals are influenced by others in a group situation (group dynamics);  Exploring controversial issues and sensitive topics [57, p. 18] (however in this situation the extremely appropriate group of participants should be selected).

Morgan summarizes the strengths of focus groups with a statement that “what they do best is produce an opportunity to collect data from groups discussing topics of interest to the researcher” [17, p. 16]. He singles out this method among other qualitative methods, calling focus groups “more controlled than participation observation”, though less controlled than individual interviewing because of “the participant-defined nature of group interaction” [17, p. 16].

Observing the focus group method separately from other qualitative methods, first of all let us pay attention to the advantages provided by it. The important research advantage of focus groups is that they help with the collection of preliminary information about a topic or phenomenon. Exploratory research typically uses qualitative research, which provides a relatively quick insight on a problem to plan a further action [30, p. 239]. Focus groups may be used in pilot

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studies to detect ideas that will be investigated further using another research method [74, p. 94].

Also focus groups provide data from a group of people much more quickly and often at less cost than in case of interviewing each participant of a focus group separately [19, p. 42]. In the process of a focus group conduction the major portion of time is spent recruiting the respondents. For reducing this time the service of a research company can be used. A good research company that specializes in recruiting for focus groups can usually recruit respondents in about 7 – 10 days, depending on the type or person required. Speaking of the possible time saving with the implementation of a focus-group method, let us mention such an example: according to Fern, two eight-person focus groups would produce as many ideas as 10 individual interviews [25]. If we also consider the amount of time nedded to conduct ten interviews and analyze them, working with two focus groups will be seen in even moere perspective light.

Focus groups have so-called synergistic effect that is impossible to occur in the process of an interview. This effect may result in production of data or ideas that might not have been uncovered in individual interviews. As Tayie mentions, with a competent moderator of a focus group the discussion can have a beneficial snowball effect, as one respondent comments on the views of another, and each remark of respondents tends to stimulate others to pursue lines of thinking that might not have been brought out in an individual situation [74, p. 95].

The flexibility in question design and follow-ups can be seen as another advantage of a focus group. Unlike interviews, where interviewer tends to ask a certain list of questions as far as he or she is instructed to do so, a moderator in a focus group has and uses the possibility to interact directly with respondents, working with a broad list of prepared questions but being open for the situation when the participants go in the direction different from the drafted plan of a group conversation. This provides opportunities for the clarification of responses, for follow-up questions, and for the probing of responses [19, p. 42].

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However, the fact that focus groups are driven by the researcher‟s interest can also be a source of weakness. Thus, Morgan writes about the possible situation when “the moderator, in the name of maintaining the interview‟s focus, will influence the group‟s interactions” [17, p. 14]. Litosselliti comments on this situation that there is a threat of possible bias and manipulation because the moderator can consciously or unconsciously lead participants and encourage them to respond the way the moderator already prejudge [57, p. 21]. Another weakness of a focus group method related to the role of a moderator is the fact of a great dependance of the whole research process on this person‟s professional skills.

Focus group depends heavily on the skills of the moderator, who must know when to probe for further information, when to stop respondents from discussing irelevant topics, and how to get all respondents involved in the discussion [74, p.

96]. In case a moderator is not appropriately prepared for a focus group or has not much experience the whole research can be endangered.

The possibility of a false group consensus is another display of a focus group negative tendencies. It becomes apparent in the situation when some participants being strong personalities and/or having similar views may dominate the discussion, while the others may remain silent. In such a situation it becomes difficult for a moderator to distinguish between an individual view and a group view as far as the participant who disagrees with the major opinion just may not say so. As well as silence, participants of a focus group could express an opinion different from what they really feel or think just in order to seem “appropriate‟ for the group opinion [57, p. 21]. In order to overcome such a scenario, most professional focus group moderators or research companies use a procedure known as an extended focus group, in which respondents are required to complete a written questionnire before the start of the group. This pregroup questionnaire which usually covers the main questions that will be discussed during the group session, serves “to force” the respondents to commit to a particular answer or position before entering the group session [74, p. 95]. Such actions eliminate the potential problem created by group dynamics, desribed above.

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The process of conducting a focus group could be described as a consecutive list of several stages. Tayie marks out seven stages: defining a problem, selecting a sample, determining the number of groups necessary and the amount of participants in each group, preparing the study mechanics, preparing the focus group materials, conducting the session and finally – analyzing the data and preparing a summary report [74, p. 96-98]. Careful planning is a very important part of a focus group research – in case of inappropriate choice of participants the full idea of a focus group will be diminished. Several examples will show the significant points influencing the behaviour of a focus group process and possible bias in case of common mistakes made while conducting a focus group. Let us look closer at the important moments related to the each stage mentioned.

The first step – defining a problem, or a research question – is a necessary and usual beginnig of any kind of a scientific research. Bickman and Rog underline the importance of understanding that “a focus group is not a freewheeling conversation among group members, it has a focus and a clearly identifiable agenda” [56, p.

511]. A clear statement about what kinds of information are desirable and from whom this information should be obtained is necessary for a proper definition of a research question. Surely, a clear understanding of a research question is possible after some preparatory information assembling has been made. As Krueger states, in a process of creating a research plan a researcher should write down the answers to the following questions:  Why do this study?  What is the key topic, issue or problem about which information is needed?  What kind of information will be produced and what is important information for this project?  What is the anticipated outcome of the study?  Who will use this information, how, and for what purposes? [55, p. 43].

When selecting a sample, researchers must define a narrow audience for the study. The impotant characteristic of a well-selected focus group is its homogenity.

Krueger and Casey define homogenity of a focus group as participants which

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“have something in common that a researcher is interested in” [79, p.71], such as their similar occupation or age, gender or family characteristics, as well as many other options and their combinations important for the exact research question, defined on the earlier stage. Still, the participants should have sufficient variations so that contrasting opinions in the process of a conversation would appear. Krueger and Casey mention that the idea of a focus group homogenity should be taken seriuosly at least because of two reasons: “One is for analysis purposes. The other os the participants‟ comfort – the degree to which sharing will be influenced by differences in participants‟ characteristics” [79, p. 72].

The traditionally recommended size of the focus group withing marketing research is ten to twelve people. Hovewer, when we have to handle with any kind of a research with knowledgeable participants, another approach to the number of participants occurs. Krueger and Casey mention the amount of six to eight participants as the ideal size of a focus group for most non-commercial topics [79, p. 73]. They suggest that focus groups with more than ten participants “are difficult to control, and they limit each person‟s opportunity to share insights and observations” [79, p. 73]. Projects in the social sciences typically involve full focus groups comprising betweem six and ten people, or mini focus groups with four to six participants [57, p. 6]. The idea of mini, or small focus groups differs only slightly from a standart focus group. These groups are conducted as standarts though they have some specific benefits. According to Edmunds such benefits are:  With fever participants, there is more emphasis on the topic and less on polling the participants;  Mini groups allow greater observational opportunities – more chances to do hands-on testing than it is possible in larger groups;  With fewer participants, there are lower recruiting costs and co-op fees [36, p. 19].

These factors are the reasons why small focus groups are becoming increasingly popular. However, this type of focus group also has its significant

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disadvantage: “it limits the total range of experiences simply because the group is smaller” [79, p. 74].

Determining the number of groups is important on the stage of planning a research, however, the amount chosen could be changed in the process of conducting a research. As Hennink writes, “the planned number of focus groups may change during the fieldwork process, groups may be held with additional target populations, the discussion issues may shift as the data collection progresses” [67, p. 23]. Nonetheless, it is not out of place to consider how many times groups should be organized. Plooy summarizes the necessary number by a significant consideration that “if the discourse leader can foresee what is going to be said in the next group, it is unnecessary to continue”, however adding that usually “this point can only be reached after three to four focus-group sessions”.

Plooy takes into account the detailed analysis of the media with relatively unstructured focus group, stating in this case that “eight or more group sessions will be required” [28, p. 120].

The process of preparing the study mechanics includes arranging for the recruitment of respondents, reserving the facilities at which the groups will be conducted, and deciding which type of recording (audio and/or video) will be used [74, p. 97]. On this stage also the moderator should be chosen and the interview guide designed. The process of identifying the moderator, as well as creating the interview guide should be carried out with regard to the group to be interviewed.

Moderators may be “more or less suited to interviewing certain groups, e.g. elderly people, male, female, different social classes, etc. Likewise, the interview guide “should be tailored to suit the particular group of respondents” [15, p. 87].

There is a possibility for a researcher not to look for a third-party moderator but to moderate a focus group by him- or herself. This situation is especially possible in a case of a limited budget when any additional costs are hard to pay.

However, absence of an independent moderator has both pros and cons. A researcher can conduct a focus group at least because of two primary benefits: budgetary advantages and a superior knowledge base of the moderator [36, p. 99].

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Edmunds writes that researchers who have direct relationship with the topic of a focus group “are more likely to have greater knowledge about the issues to be discussed in the focus groups” [36, p. 100], which will be seen in their understanding of the terminology, the main tendencies of a researched sphere and so on.

On the other hand, two main disadvantages of such an approach should be reviewed attentively as far as they can influence the way of research irreversibly.

First of all, without an internal moderator a possibility of bias occurs. Edmunds mentions: “an internal moderator is likely to word questions in a manner that leads participants to support the moderator‟s views regarding the discussion topic” [36, p. 101]. Another insecurity related to an internal moderator is his or her ability to change the results of a study unwittingly. The cause of such a situation could be the researcher‟s lack of experience in a role of a moderator. Some level of moderator skills are requred to see the hidden tendencies occuring in the process of a focus group, while the unexpirienced moderator “can prevent the true results from emerging from the discussion” [36, p. 101]. In such a situation the money saved on a moderator could develop into wrong conclusions based on the misleading results of the poorly conducted research.

On the stage of preparing the focus group materials each aspect of a focus group must be planned in detail. This section includes preparation of the additional materials the participants will see, hear or read, questionnaries that may be required to be completed in advance or objects they will examine and so on. Also the list of planned questions for the moderator should be done as well. The appropriate preparation on this stage eliminates the technical problems in the process of conducting a focus group, which can influence the results of a research.

It is important to take into account that the existence of a moderator‟s guide “does not mean that the moderator cannot ask the questions not contained in the guide” [74, p. 97] – the situation is quite opposite and a moderator will ask additional questions based on the development of the group conversation, but it is important

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to have a basement which will allow to save the main research direction of a focus group, and in this situation a prepared questionnaire plays its role.

It is highly recommended by many researchers of a focus group method that as with survey research, the interview guide should be pre-tested prior to use. Such practice helps to “determine problems with the wording of questions, whether they elicit discussion and whether they are easily understood” [15, p. 87]. Pre-testing is ideally to be tested on the individuals who are representatives of those participating in the actual focus group. It is important that the people being pre-tested are not aware of the research purpose as well as are not involved in the design of the interview guide.

A process of a focus group conduction itself is as successful as good the previous stages have been developed. However, the place where the focus group takes pace is a thing of a great importance for the atmosphere in the group. Using the modern technologies it is possible to organize focus groups without actual presence of all the participants in one place. Thus, it is not uncommon to use telephone focus groups, video-conference focus groups and online focus groups.

Still, despite such a possibility focus groups that are conducted virtually may be less appropriate for social science research. Litosseliti writes that such advantages of virtual groups as participation over distances, savings on time and cost, and a speedier turnout are great for use by market researchers and industry researchers focusing on products and services, while for social scientists involved in academic research these advantages “are offset by disadvantages, such as the lack of spontaneity, the loss of body language and the limited depth of responce” [57, p.

6]. Really, in some kinds of social researches the body language, the non-verbal communications between the participants of the focus group, their interest in the topic and so on are as important as the verbal answers they give to the questions.

Moreover, although real-presence focus group can be conducted in a variety of sites ranging from home to offices, it is most common for focus groups to be held in facilities designerd especially for focus groups interviewing, because such

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facilities provide one-way mirrors and viewing rooms where observers may unobtrusively watch the interview in progress [19, p. 37].

The initial role of a moderator at the beginnig of a focus group is to establish friendly and relaxed atmosphere so that participants could express themselves freely. Asking questions nearly related to the topic of a research at the very beginning is not the best strategy. The time which is used for making the participants to feel sufficiently relaxed could not be considered as a waste, in this period the moderator can introduce him- or herself and the co-moderator if such a person is present. After that the participants‟ permission to record the session should be obtained, the agenda, basic rules and main objectives of the meetings should be explained and finally the discussion is initiated by the first question [51, p. 60].

The depth of a final report lies in direct proportion to the needs of the study as well as the amount of time and money available [74, p. 98]. The transcription could be only a brief summary of the main points or the detailed description of all the categories mentioned in the process of a group discussion.

According to Morgan, the important moment in the interpretating process is “distinguishing between what participants find interesting and what they find important” [17, p.62]. Thus, the interest of participants in discussing a specific topic indicates their interest, but not obligatory indicates the importance of the topic, and vice versa – the point that may be important could be discussed only briefly because the members of a focus group somehow have found it inappropriate or inconvenient for them. That is why it is also important to analyse not only the words expresed, but also the facial expressions of all the participants at the moments of discussing these or another questions.

As well as analysiing the words said by participants the meaning of the words should be analysed, the researcher needs to determine the degree of similarity between the responses. The attention should be paid to the fact that usually “words are used in a similar manner within a group, but the same word might be used quite differently in other groups” [16, p.32]. Morgan and Crueger develop the thought

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that the analysis based only on reviewing the words is too inaccurate because it excludes more deep-rooted displays of attitude towards the topic, as well as inappropriately underscores the meaning of the words taken out of the context. The authors make an example showing two diffrernt attitudes of people towards words: “sometimes, people are careful and exact in their language use; other times, a word or phrase will be used inadvertently or accidentally” [16, p. 32]. So the person who interpretates the results of a focus group should be cautios and logical about the situations when the emphasis on words should be minimized or taken as the core of the analysis. Morgan and Crueger suggest that “words themselves should command attention, but these words should fit within a larger pattern of communication, The words should be consistent with other factors in the analysis process” [16, p. 32].

Providing the results of a focus groups analysis in a form of a written report, there are three basic ways to do it. At one extreme, the investigator prepares a brief summary of the principal findings , mainly relying on memory. Another extreme is when the researcher listens to the audio / watches all videomaterials made in a process of the focus groups, copies down the most remarkable quotes and creates the cheme based on all the answers received as well as the research objectives announced.

The method between the two extremes, which is also the most common one, is often called “the cut-and-paste-technique”. McDaniel and Gates describe its main stages in the following way: “Firstly, the group session is being transcribed; Next, the researcher reviews the transcripts looking for common threads or trends in response patterns.Similar patterns are then cut apart and matched between the groups. The researcher then ends up with folders containing relevant material by subject matter“ [10, p. 110]. The last step – writing a report itself. The final report has an introduction desribing the research purpose, the major questions of the researcher, main characteristics of group members and the way they were recruited. Next, the main tendencies of the research arranged by the most striking

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quotes are mentioned, and in the summarizing part further recommendations and the main body of findings are given.

As a final remark, let us take into account the importance of a qualitative method of focus groups together with a quantitative method (a questionnaire survey, as it was made in our example). A method of focus groups can work both as a self-contained research tool and as a supplementary tool for a futher quantitative study. An example provided by Wimmer and Dominick on such a situation is a situation, when a researcher plannig a specific kind of a survey may develop questionnaire items based on the content of a number of focus groups that discuss that topic [83, p. 131]. In the multimethod approach the focus group method is one of a number of qualitative and/or quantitative techniques used to collect data about a topic. In this situation the focus group will be observed not as a supplementary method: it stands as an equal methodology. Also, it is an approach used in the present study and its results will be explained in the next section.

2.2.2 The focus group design and participants The main source for recruiting participants was the Internet. The announcements were spread across social networks, university forums and among subscribers of different socially active groups. The main filter for choosing the participants for the focus group was their positive answer to the question: “Do you watch at least one documentary each two months?� This question was necessary to choose those people who have interest towards documentary films and therefore can could express their opinions on different topics concerning this genre. In Germany additional requirement was the knowledge of English language, due to the fact that the research was conducted in English. The age of participants was determined between 18 and 25 years, and also only the University students were participating.

The pilot focus group was conducted in December among the Ukrainian students; it consisted of 9 people and show that it was difficult for all the participants to answer the questions in the limited period of time. That is why, later the amount of participants of 4 research focus groups was reduced to 6-7

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participants in each group. This decision had a positive influence on the group dynamics and resulted in the improved situation when all the participants were able to express their opinions and had intragroup communications without being stressed with a lack of time. The central research questions of this part of the study were following: RQ1: What is the role of a documentary film in the students‟ life?

RQ2: Which categories are assigned by students as those defining the value, attractiveness and quality of a documentary film?

RQ3: What are the factors influencing the students‟ choice of a specific documentary film for viewing?

In average, each focus group lasted approximately 2 hours and consisted both of collection and writing down preliminary information on the topic, discussion and carrying out creative tasks, such as creating a poster for a documentary film. Such an approach has been chosen regarding the results of the a study demonstrating that the use of strategies that integratinge both the creative production and discussion can provide the researcher “with a more thorough understanding of the attitudes held by audience members” [89, p. 362].

In Ukraine two focus groups were organized in Kyiv in January, 2011 and April, 2011. The 1st focus group consisted of 7 people, and the 2nd – of 6 people from several Kyiv universities, both male and female. The age of participants is varying between 18 and 25 years.

In Germany two focus groups were organized in Berlin in January, 2011 and in Bonn in February, 2011. The 1st focus group consisted of 5 male participants and 2nd – of 6 participants, both male and female.

In Ukraine both focus groups were held in Ukrainian language and the results were translated by the researcher into English, whereas both focus groups in Germany were conducted in English language.

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3. THE RESEARCH RESULTS

3.1 Data analysis of focus groups RQ1: What is the role of a documentary film in the students’ life?

Most of the participants of the focus groups held in Ukraine admitted the informative role of documentary films in their lives. Among them, the majority named documentaries as “a subsidiary source of information” on the topic interesting for them. Approximately half of the participants mentioned that they start looking for a documentary on a specific topic when they are interested in a specific area of knowledge and want to discover more about it. Thus, a female participant mentioned: “For me it is an additional source of information on the topic interesting for me right now. When a football competition was held in Africa I watched films about Africa because I wanted to discover more about it; if, for example now I have a university course in social movements – I watch documentaries about fascists and antifascists. It helps me to be in the context”.

Several participants mentioned the importance of documentary films as the source of information about social and political issues in the country. According to this group of opinions, documentaries help to visualize the information they have received from other media sources such as newspapers or TV and radionews. The comment of a male respondent concerning this point is: “I start watching a documentary because I tell myself it is a necessity.

Documentary doesn’t work as the main source of information about social issues, but when I see the film about modern problems of our [Ukrainian] society I definitely start watching it because I tell myself – I need to know more exactly on this topic”.

At the same time, for several participants the documentary film also works as a source of visualization of a topic they already have heard about, but in this

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situation it works not only as informative but as an additional esthetical and entertaining source: “Before I watched the documentary about Chornobyl, I knew how things worked there but I couldn’t imagine the picture until a saw the film. This point also concerns films about exotic animals, the space, distant places and so on. It’s beautiful esthetically, it’s the visual information about something I wouldn’t see in a real life, but I could do it using the film. This is both informative and interesting, and leaves a feeling as if I was there” – says the female respondent.

The participants of focus groups held in Germany had similar opinion about the role of documentary films in their lives. Most of them also described a documentary genre as a source of information about the topic interesting for them at in present. It was described as “new information with no judging unlike news”, “the source of information on a topic interesting for me”, “a visual guide through the places I will not see in reality” etc. As an informative tool, a documentary was described by one of the male participants as “the best way to gain basic knowledge on difficult topics”. Several participants combined the informative role of a documentary film with the entertaining one – they mentioned that they usually start watching documentaries on TV at night when “there is nothing more interesting is left to do”.

As well as Ukrainian participants, the German ones mentioned that a documentary film provides them with the visual information on the topic they knew about, but found it difficult to imagine the overall picture.

“I saw the film which very emotionally showeds the problem of movement in China in the period of New Year holidays. I actually already read something about it, but the articles I’ved read before didn’t have such influence on me as the video I watched. It really impressed me and gave a needed visual experience” – comments a male participant from Berlin.

The important idea that wasn‟t described by Ukrainian participants was the influential role of a documentary film. “A documentary film is not about moneymaking, it‟s about making an impact. To have an impact, you should motivate

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people to behave in another way, and for that you should show them possibilities in a film” – tells a female participant. Most female participants of the German focus groups underlined this role of a documentary film as the important one in their own lives. They also said about the influence which documentaries revealing some significant secrets have on them: “Every documentary that reveals the truth about an important issue for me stays in my mind for a very long time and I talk about it with everybody and advice to watch it immediately”.

To summarize, the comments above make understandable the informative and entertaining role of a documentary

film in the lives of Ukrainian and German

students, and also its importance as a source of awareness about social and political issues.

RQ2: Which categories are assigned by students as those defining the value, attractiveness and quality of a documentary film?

The answers for the RQ2 were completed by collecting answers to two tasks: first of all, the students were writing down and telling the most important moments important for them in documentary films. Another task – the creative one – consisted of creating a draft of a poster for a film they would consider as the most interesting and topical nowadays, later explaining the idea of the film and main points making this imaginary film outstanding. After both tasks were completed and analyzed, such categories were sorted out as those defining the value, attractiveness and quality of a documentary film. For the better perception, let us compare the answers of students from both countries, juxtaposing main statements in a table 3.1.

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Table 3.1 – Categories defining the documentary film value, attractiveness and quality – an extract from the focus group materials Ukraine similar categories Informativeness of the film Not just a set of facts but a film with its dramatic concept There must be an idea behind the film No bias – all the sides should be shown Statements should be substantiated by facts The film should be easy to understand, it shouldn‟t be too complicated Reliable sources and opinions of experts in spheres related to the topic of the film Minimizing of artistic elements in informative documentaries

Germany

Informational value of the film Not just random facts but a film based on a dramatic concept There must be an appeal, a motivation in a film No bias – points of view from different sides, as well as appropriate time for expressing a point of view for each side Statements should be substantiated by facts The film should tell its idea in a simple way, even if the topic is difficult it should be presented understandably Reliable sources and opinions of experts in spheres related to the topic of the film In informative documentaries there should be more experts and less artistic elements, such as musical score Good video quality Emotional appeal in the film Historical and political correctness A secret, intrigue in a story It should involve and provoke feelings

Good video quality Emotional appeal in the film Historical correctness A secret, intrigue in a story It must provoke feelings, thoughts, emotions – at least something of listed Absence of cliché Absence of cliché Absence of agitation or imposing of ideas and/or A film should avoid any suggestive interference: ways of life the new information as well as characters should be presented with no judging In a film a profound examination of one idea is The film should be well-prepared and the topic better than superficial approach towards several profoundly depicted ideas different categories Appropriate music that enriches the perception of The main character should be impressive either a topic from good or bad side, this person should not be someone ordinary A film should not be simplified to the level of a There must be interviews with the people TV-show involved in a situation depicted Less words – more video: to show is better than Should not be never ending topics – pauses are to tell important too Aesthetics in a documentary film is important as The realness of the film: no staged elements well as in a fictional one except actors in some historical documentaries Actions are important – there should be dynamics There should be links or mentioning of ways to in a film find more information on a topic or take part in the issue depicted in a documentary A film topic should be close to reality, but not an abstract problem should be shown in a film New approaches in video shooting and/or material presentation

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Now, let us look closer to the categories defined above and their interpretations made by the participants of focus groups in Germany and Ukraine.

First of all, we should pay attention to those categories, which were described more than once in several focus groups, which could tell about the especial importance of these factors for students as viewers of documentary films.

There were three main characteristics described both by Ukrainian and German students as the primary indicators of quality documentaries. First of all, informational value of the film was described as dominant characteristic by the majority of respondents. Thus, the Ukrainian female participant defined informativeness of the documentary film as its basic quality: “This is what documentaries exist for. They are not made to be artistic, documentary films are needed for us, so that we could learn something new, know about something happening in the world we did not know before. Therefore a documentary film first of all should be informative”.

According to some points of view among the participants, the informative component of a documentary film should be preserved by omitting artistic elements such as music, voice of narrator or stage elements – these people see such elements as something that is making the film more subjective and less informative and truthful. Thus, a German male participant stated: “I think when there is a music in a documentary it means they want to influence my emotions, whereas I believe in a documentary film not music but information is important. The music is not that necessary”.

The similar opinion shares a female participant from Ukraine: “All the artistic moments in documentaries should be minimized. I think they bring into a documentary doubts about its truthfulness, they bring falseness, make objects seem unrealistic etc. The artfulness should be left for feature films whereas informative component should be the prerogative of documentaries”.

Still, there also were many statements protecting the aesthetic and artistic component of documentary films. Despite claims for historical correctness and

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objectivity both from German and Ukrainian students, Ukrainian students more actively expressed the importance of aesthetic component in a documentary.

“Aesthetics means a lot. It should be pleasant for an eye to watch a film.

Such film is easier to watch, and even more – it helps to gain information more sufficiently, because they can easier make a viewer interested, it is easier for a viewer to watch an aesthetically nice documentary”.

Emotionality of a documentary film has also become a point of hot discussion in all focus groups. Whereas some those participants who insisted on the dominating informational values of a film stated that emotional film is disturbing the objectiveness and tries to influence the whole idea, most of Ukrainian and German students agreed about the necessity for a good film to be emotional somehow and to arise set of different emotions.

“If you make a film, make me laugh, make me cry, just involve my feelings because this is the way you can get me in. I’m a human being, I’m not rational, I have personal feelings. People have enough rationality every day, so when they choose how to spend spare time if they need only information – they could read a newspaper. But people also like to feel, and any kind of a film – both a feature and a documentary should provide them not only with information, but also some emotions” – expressively stated the male German participant.

The very important point which was thoroughly discussed especially in German focus groups was the question of bias. The absence of bias was underlined as one of the most necessary characteristics of documentaries. Here we find the interesting distinction in attitude towards biased films from German and Ukrainian students. German participants expressed full unacceptance of those documentaries where there is undisguised bias, whereas some Ukrainian participants have expressed a specific interest towards such “propagandistic” and “agitating” films: “Sometimes it is even interesting to watch such biased films just in order to educate yourself by recognizing this bias. After all, I make fun of those people who seriously take such biased films so I think they develop me too, but only if I don’t take those films too seriously” – stated the Ukrainian male participant.

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Continuing the examination of the bias in documentaries, let us also pay attention to an important detail. While most of the Ukrainian students said that bias is unacceptable in a good documentary and there should be place for each side of the conflict to tell its opinion on the subject, a German student made an important consideration immediately supported by other group members. He stated: “It is not only important to show the other side, but it is also necessary to give the other side required time to express itself – otherwise it is just pretending and not really making it. And it is important for me as a viewer because I want to make my own decision without being influenced by a biased representation of a topic by a documentary filmmaker”.

The next category discussed and prevailed among the students of both countries was the dramatic concept of a film – as it was said by several participants, “there must be a story, not just a set of random facts”. As a source of such a story several participants have mentioned “a secret, intrigue in a film”, stating the importance for this secret to be revealed at the end of a film.

Interesting enough is the fact that the dramatic component was stated as the important one even by those Ukrainian students, who most rigorously were speaking against the artistic components in a film. Thus, we could make a conclusion that these participants did not fully differentiated the pure informativeness and some artistic components in a documentary film and nonetheless needed some means for making information presented in a documentary look more attractively and interesting.

Easy presentation of serious ideas was seen as a serious attractiveness and reason to watch a documentary. For example, a German participant said that the idea of “telling about difficult things and new areas of knowledge” was the reason why he watches documentaries very often, especially if he needs to receive basic knowledge about a new area of science etc. Though the Ukrainian participants also supported this idea, one of them expressed the opinion about the problem connected to excessive simplifying of some documentaries. Thus, he stated an additional requirement to a good documentary:

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“A documentary should not be simplified to a level of a TV-show, when presentation of information adds up to domestic comparisons”.

There was a list of categories suggested by German participants and connected by the idea of objectivity – the topic that was one of the most discussed among German students. Thus, they have mentioned such features, as “commentaries of real participants of the events described in a documentary”, “the minimization or total absence of staged moments” and so on.

To summarize, it is clearly seen both from the table and the answers of participants that there are more similarities than differences in their perception of main characteristics a good documentary film should have.

The slight difference in categories defined by the participants concerns such characteristics as aesthetics of a documentary film and its truthfulness and objectivity. Ukrainian students expressed more willingness to watch aesthetically developed films, approved experimental ways of information presentation and vivid interest towards the visual element of documentaries. In comparison, the German participants of focus groups were more concentrated on the way of information presentation in a film, showing their readiness to see serious films with less artistic tools but with objective uninfluenced commentaries of experts.

RQ3: What are the factors influencing the students’ choice of a specific documentary film for viewing?

Answers received on this question has become especially important for the next stage of a research – the questionnaire survey, which results will be described in the next subsection, was created because of the tendency in the answers I saw while conducting the focus groups.

Among factors influencing the decision to watch a specific film both Ukrainian and German students mentioned: - The interest in a topic of a film; - The positive description of a film by relatives/friends/critics; - The overall interest in films of a specific filmmaker;

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- The accidental finding a reference to a film while looking for additional information on a specific topic; - The lack of other entertainments at the moments the film is shown on TV. The main difference in the answers between the focus groups was related to the documentary film viewing via the TV. Whereas only a minority of Ukrainian students said they were watching documentaries via the TV, many German students mentioned the importance of TV as a source of good documentaries: “Usually at night I don’t know what to do so I watch documentaries at our public TV-channel. I always look at night if there is a topic interesting for me – and if there is some film about politics or economy – I will watch it”.

The majority of the Ukrainian students said they were watching documentaries generally via the Internet and chose specific films because their friends advised them to watch it: “Most of the information we take from other people, the same is about the choice of a film to watch. I trust my friends’ opinions – if they tell me to watch the exact film – I watch it and usually like it” – tells about the reasons of her choice a female participant from Ukraine.

However, another Ukrainian student rejected the idea of watching a film because of someone‟s advice. For him the main reason to watch a documentary is to gain additional information on the topic interesting at the very moment: “I like to choose a documentary to watch by myself, according to the topic I am currently interested in. For example, I have just read the book of Hemingway “The fifth column” and felt interest towards the topic of a citizen war in Spain. So I started watching chronicles and documentaries on this topic”.

In total, the positive responses about the film seem to be important for the Ukrainian students. The majority of them said even if someone advised them to watch some documentary or they accidentally found it as the one related to the topic of their interest they were looking for additional information about the film in the Internet because “if I know nothing about the film it is really difficult to make

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me watch it”, “I am not in that age already when I was ready to watch any film which came to me by chance”, “if I see the rating of a film is low I will not watch it then” etc.

A Ukrainian student summarized the idea of importance of

commentaries in the Internet left by a specific film‟s viewers: “Good films are usually commented a lot. Moreover, the most interesting and controversial films have very different comments – both positive and negative. For me it is the main confirmation that the documentary is worth seeing”.

Except review of commentaries about the film, in the Ukrainian focus groups also the film director‟s authority (“I will surely watch the film of a famous filmmaker, especially if I liked his previous documentaries”) and the social importance were mentioned as the basic reasons for choosing a documentary to watch. In the last case, Ukrainian students have expressed a specific interest towards documentaries on social topics related to the political and social situation in Ukraine, though they were not able to mention many Ukrainian documentaries worth seeing – this situation could be explained by the inequality between the Ukrainian viewers‟ needs and the availability of documentaries concentrated on topics related to the Ukrainian context, as well as a documentary TV-channel similar to one existing in Germany.

The participants of German focus groups mentioned the importance of commentaries they find in the Internet as the source for making a decision whether to watch a specific documentary or not. Three main reasons for watching a specific documentary among them was the interest towards the topic, the positive reference of friends or positive commentaries of viewers in the Internet and the combination of both factors: “There are some topics that interest me and sometimes I go to the Internet for the information on these topics. And also I like watching documentaries. So when I just surf the Internet and find a documentary on some of these topics – I definitely watch it” – said the German female participant, who also habitually watches documentaries at night on TV-channels.

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Those students who said they did not watch TV because they “did not like most of the channels” or “did not like the restraints it put on a viewer” and chose the Internet as the main source for watching films, and documentaries among them.

The difference between reasons for choosing a film to watch if the media chosen is TV or the Internet is obvious to understand through the commentary of a male participant who watches documentaries both on TV and using the Internet: “In case of a TV viewing I just urn a TV-set on and look whether the topic is interesting for me or not. But the way I find films on the Internet is different. I look for some topic, find advices to watch some documentaries on this topic – choose one and then watch the documentary”.

To summarize the answers to the RQ3, let us underline the importance of other people‟s opinions and interest towards the topic as the main reasons for watching this or that documentary both among Ukrainian and German students.

The difference in this question concerns the attitude and the approach of watching a documentary film using TV or the Internet. Whereas Ukrainian students expressed more interest in independent choice of a documentary film using the Internet, many German respondents showed positive attitude towards the documentary TV-channels in their country and even show their readiness to watch a documentary on TV without receiving additional information about it. At the same time, most of the Ukrainian students were more interested in watching a documentary in the Internet and after the thorough reading of comments and reviews on the specific documentary chosen.

3.2 Results of the Internet questionnaire survey Speaking of demographical data, most of the Ukrainian participants were aged 18 – 21 years (54%) and 21 – 25 years (37%), the rest were students aged less than 18 years (3%) and more than 25 years (6%). Among German participant the majority of respondents were aged 21 – 25 years (52%) and 18 – 21 years (40%), and only 8% of respondents were older than 25 years.

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Answering the filtering question about the frequency of watching documentary films (Figure 3.2.1), most of Ukrainian respondents chose the option “I watch at least one documentary each month” (31%), the second most popular result was “I watch one documentary in several months” (30%), only 4% answered they watch more than one documentary a week or one documentary each week (8%). Almost one forth part of Ukrainian respondents answered they were watching documentaries very seldom, whereas this rate is two times lower among the German respondents (12%).

Figure 3.2.1 – Frequency of watching documentary films

In total, German students show more interest towards the documentary film genre – 28% of them admitted they were watching several documentaries a week and 34% of respondents watch one documentary each week.

In both countries, only 2% of respondents answered they do not watch documentaries at all because they do not like this type of film.

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The participants of the survey were asked to mark how often they use different types of media sources for watching documentary films and specify how often they do it. It should be noted that participant were able to choose different options because usually we have several sources of information and it works for access to documentaries as well.

The most popular media sources of documentary films for students both in Ukraine and Germany are the television and the Internet (Figure 3.2.2).

Figure 3.2.2 – The Internet and TV as the most popular sources of documentaries

Such sources as festival and non-festival screenings, buying a DVD or other possibilities in most cases were marked as not being used at all. Only the option of buying a DVD with a documentary film was more or less popular among Germans (145 of respondents sometimes do it), and also 11% of Ukrainians and 10% of Germans marked that sometimes they watch documentaries in cinemas (more detailed information is available in Appendix C).

As far as the Internet and television are two main competing sources of documentary films for the students watching documentaries, let us examine more thoroughly the influence these two ways of access to documentary films have on each other. The tables 3.2 and 3.3 contain the results of answers to two questions: “How often do you watch documentaries” and “Where do you watch

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documentaries most often” (with the full range of answers concerning all introduced ways of answering). These exact results have been chosen among others because they are representing the interesting tendency related to the Table 3.2 – Main sources of watching documentaries – German respondents

Table 3.3 – Main sources of watching documentaries – Ukrainian respondents

situation when using one kind of media for watching documentary film practically excludes use of another. In this example, our attention was concentrated on the interconnection between using the Internet or television for watching documentaries.

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As we see from the tables, such answers to the question “Where do you watch documentaries” in the columns “On TV” or “In the Internet” as “Never” or “Seldom” are supplemented by the answer “Sometimes”, “Often”, “Always”. The important moment for making these summary tables was the condition that there is not a stronger answer in columns presenting other possible documentary sources (At festivals; in a cinema; A DVD with a documentary; other) in comparison to one of two main documentary sources (TV or the Internet), as well as the answers as “Often” in one of these columns also resulted in exclusion of the row from this range.

In other words, the purpose of these two tables was to show the situation when a person uses only one main source of documentaries, fully excludes another main source and possibly rarely uses one or several supplementary sources; while the situation when a respondent answered he/she does not use neither TV, not the Internet for watching a documentary, while uses some of the supplementary sources for doing it, is not the option we were examining in this example.

As a result of the analysis, the information provided in these summary tables shows us the next situation: - Among 108 Ukrainian respondents watching documentaries there are 29 people (nearly 27%) who use either TV or the Internet as the main source of documentary film and ignore another main source. Thus, 10% of respondents in this group choose TV and ignore the Internet, while almost 17% of respondents made a choice of the Internet for watching documentaries and ignored or almost ignored the TV for the same purpose.

- Among 49 German respondents watching documentaries there are 14 people (nearly 29%) who use either TV or the Internet as the main source of documentary film and ignore another main source. 12% of respondents in this group choose TV and ignore the Internet, while almost 17% of respondents chose the Internet for watching documentaries and ignored or almost ignored the TV for the same purpose.

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With no doubt, such a tendency should be examined more thoroughly because there are many other possible reasons influencing this situation. However, we have reasons to suppose the strong connection and the growing tendency of shift from using one source of watching documentaries (TV) to another source (the Internet), as well as existence of a group of people, who have conservative attitude towards the Internet as a source of watching video (as well as documentaries), and therefore continue ignore this media for such a purpose being fully pleased with TV. The amount of people who do not use the Internet or television as the source for watching documentary films is very similar in Ukraine and Germany – 10% of Ukrainian and 8% of German respondents have answered they are not watching documentaries on TV, the same situation is with the respondents who do not use the Internet for watching documentary films: again, 10% among Ukrainian and 8% among German respondents said they never use the Internet as a source of documentaries.

The significant difference between the usages of TV for watching documentaries appears between the preferences of Ukrainian and German students (Figure 3.2.3). Whereas only 10% of Ukrainian respondents mentioned they watch documentaries on TV very often, practically a half of German respondents (48%) Figure 3.2.3 – How often respondents use TV as a source of documentary films

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stated they use TV as a source of documentaries often, and 14% - watch documentaries on TV permanently.

The Internet started being used as a source of documentary films by most of the Ukrainian respondents approximately 2-3 years ago (43%), whereas most of German respondents chose the option “Long time ago” (40%) and 34% approximately 2-3 years ago (Figure 3.2.4).

Figure 3.2.4 – When respondents started watching documentaries using the Internet

Speaking of advantages provided by the Internet for documentary viewers, the most popular option among both Ukrainian and German respondents was the possibility of quick and convenient search of a necessary documentary – this option was chosen by 80% of Ukrainian and by 76% of German respondents (Figure 3.2.5). The popularity of other answers was also very similar between the two countries. In both of them, the second important convenience of the Internet was “Possibility to watch whenever it is convenient for me” (mentioned by 77% of

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Ukrainian respondents and 71% of German respondents), and the third one – “Freedom of choice in choosing a film I will watch” (mentioned by 68% of Ukrainian respondents and 69% of German respondents).

Figure 3.2.5 – Main advantages of watching documentaries via the Internet

Low quality of video and audio of documentary films was chosen as the main disadvantage of watching documentaries via the Internet – 78% percent of German respondents and 54% of Ukrainian respondents have chosen this option (Figure 3.2.6).

Figure 3.2.6 – Main disadvantages of watching documentaries via the Internet

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The situation when “sometimes during the screening it turns out that a documentary is not in a full version” was the second popular choice for describing the disadvantages of documentary watching using the Internet (35% of German respondents and 38% of Ukrainian respondents). The category “Annoying advertisements” was marked by approximately one-third of German respondents (29%), meanwhile among the Ukrainian participants this answer was almost three times less popular (11%) – possibly it shows that Ukrainian Internet users are more used to advertisements in the Internet or have less negative attitude towards them.

One fifth of Ukrainian respondents (20%) expressed a need of discussion after the film viewing, which is unavailable after watching a documentary in the Internet and not at festival or cinema. 12% of German participants have chosen this option also.

Speaking of the main reasons the documentary films are viewed via the Internet, the participants of the survey answered the question: “What are your reasons for watching the documentary film via the Internet?”, having several simultaneously possible options for answers. The answers to this question are presented on the Figure 3.2.7: Figure 3.2.7 – Reasons for watching documentaries via the Internet

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Accidental watching of a documentary or its choice because of someone‟s advice was chosen by participants from both countries as the most common reason to watch a documentary via the Internet (Ukrainian respondents – 58%, German respondents – 54%). Another popular reason was the option “I always look for documentaries and watch them using the Internet” (German respondents – 43%, Ukrainian respondents – 36%). The lack of the TV-set or ignorance of T, resulting in the fact that the Internet becomes the main source of video, also was the second popular result among Ukrainian respondents (36%), whereas for German participants this option was approximately two times less popular (15%). Among those participants who watch TV as well as use the Internet, the decision to watch a documentary film was also influenced by the option “I wanted to watch something and there wasn‟t any interesting film on TV” (Ukrainian respondents – 22%, German respondents – 26%).

Speaking of watching documentaries using the Internet, there are two main options of doing it: by watching documentary films online or/and finding and downloading them from the Internet and further watch offline. The participants of the internet questionnaire survey were asked about the way they usually choose for watching a documentary via the Internet, as well as were asked to write down the most common sources of Internet-based documentaries they use. The results of these two questions show the significant difference in approach used by students in Ukraine and Germany. First of all, let us compare the data below (Figure 3.2.8): Figure 3.2.8 – The main option of using the Internet as a source of documentaries

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As it is seen from the charts, most of the German respondents (70%) answered they use the Internet for watching documentary films online. Only a few German students (8%) said they use it for downloading films, and 16% of respondents admitted they were using the Internet both for watching films online and downloading them.

To compare, the number of Ukrainian respondents who were receiving documentaries via the Internet only by watching them online was significantly less and was 32%. At the same time, such usages of the Internet as downloading documentaries (23%) or both watching online and downloading (39%) were chosen significantly more frequently than in the previous case. Such a tendency could also be visually supported by so-called “tag clouds” – visually designed “lists of words where font size indicates frequency of tag use” [103, p. 264]. Two tag clouds placed below were created using the open internet-service wordle.net [104] The content for these clouds (Figure 3.2.9) was generated from the names of services and sites mentioned by the Ukrainian and German respondents as the main Internet sources of documentary films for them.

Figure 3.2.9 – The most popular sources of documentaries

As far as the size of a word is in direct proportion to its mentioning, it is clearly seen that the Ukrainian respondents mentioned such main sources of documentary films as the social network “vkontakte.ru”, the video service youtube.com and popular Russian and Ukrainian torrents ex.ua, rutracker.org, and other different torrents simply described by the word “torrents”. At the same time,

79

the most popular source of documentaries mentioned by German respondents is the video service youtube.com, which allows uploading and watching video online.

This comparison makes it clearer to understand the attitude of German and Ukrainian students towards the idea of author‟s rights: while in each groups there were respondents who admitted the fact they were downloading films from the Internet, Ukrainian respondents have shown significant willingness to download documentaries from the services most of which (such as vkontakte.ru, ex.ua, rutracker.org) are mentioned in the USTR Review of Notorious Markets as the popular sources well-known for relation to author‟s rights violations or piracy [105].

The complementary question to the questions listed above was the question shown on the Figure 3.2.10: Figure 3.2.10 – The question “Is it possible that you may pay for watching a documentary film online / downloading it from the Internet?”

According to the answers to this question, the practice of payments for the documentary viewing / downloading via the Internet is unpopular among most of the respondents. There was not a single person among Ukrainian participants who mentioned that he/she paid for a documentary received via the Internet at least once, though 6% of German respondents stated they “sometimes pay for watching documentaries via the Internet”. The majority of the respondents both in Ukraine (65%) and Germany (46%) stated they were always looking for Internet resources

80

with free access to documentaries. A few German (15%) and fewer Ukrainian (10%) students admitted there is a possibility they could pay for a documentary in the Internet, but only in case it would be the only possibility to watch a really important for some reasons documentary for them. There was a segment of respondents in both countries (32% of respondents from Germany and 17% of respondents from Ukraine) who said about a theoretical possibility to pay for watching documentary via the Internet, despite they have never done this before.

When respondents were answering the question of the Internet survey, concerning the role of the Internet as a media source for watching documentaries, the most popular answer both among German and Ukrainian students was the option “I watch documentaries not only via the Internet, but it is the main source of documentaries for me”. This was the answer of 50% Ukrainian respondents and 42% of German respondents (Figure 3.2.11).

Figure 3.2.11 – The level of watching documentaries via the Internet

Speaking of those who rejected the Internet as a source of documentary films, these were only 5% among German and 14% among Ukrainian respondents.

These numbers do not correspondent with the answer for one of the first questions where 10% of Ukrainian and 8% of German participants said they were not using Internet for watching documentaries. However, the explanation for this situation is that the option “I look for documentaries in the Internet only if I don‟t have other

81

possibilities for watching a documentary” was chosen even by those respondents, who answered earlier they do not use the Internet as a source of documentaries at all and/or marked this media source of documentaries as the one they never use or use rarely. It means that even if respondents consider themselves as non-watchers of documentary films via the Internet, nevertheless some of them occasionally have used this tool for the search of documentaries.

Finally, the last two questions of this block were related to the language preferences of viewers and their attitude towards commenting the film they have seen in the Internet. As it is seen from the Figure 3.2.12, the minority of respondents (16% among Ukrainians and 14% among Germans) show their preference of watching documentaries only in the native language. The majority of the respondents have marked one of two possibilities – watching films in familiar foreign language or with subtitles – which works as an indicator that for the majority of students the documentary they want to see is not significantly restricted by language boundaries.

Figure 3.2.12 – Acceptable languages for documentary films

The viewers‟ readiness to leave feedback after viewing a documentary was examined through the questionnaire‟s question “Do you comment on a

82

documentary

film

you

saw

in

the

Internet,

do

you

advice

it

to

others?�(Figure 3.2.13) Figure 3.2.13 – Commenting on the documentary after watching it

Most of the German respondents (46%) said thy prefered not to live any comments after watching a film, while Ukrainian respondents in most cases (59%) show readiness to leave some feedback about the film they really liked.

83

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Though a documentary film cannot compete with feature motion picture in terms of commercial success, its importance in our life is evaluated not in the currency category, but in even more significant categories as informational, educational, social stimulating and other important values of our existence.

The technological innovations of last decades have changed the shape of documentary production and distribution as well as caused new forms of perception of documentaries by its audience, which became more diverse, issueoriented, demanding and driven by not only the intention to watch a documentary film, but also to react on it. Thus, the modern documentary viewer is gradually becoming not only a viewer but an active participant of a documentary film creation, somehow coming into the line with the documentary film creators. This shift has become possible due to such modern tools as Internet in total and its components such as social networks, blogs, online video streams and so on.

These days the generation of young people is already accustomed to the idea that the Internet assists them in the majority of everyday actions related to the process of gaining information. Documentary films were not put aside this tendency, and therefore the Internet has also become a significant media source supplementing and sometimes even replacing television as the basic source for watching documentaries of (in) the last decade.

The results of a study conducted with Ukrainian and German students does not provide us with absolutely accurate information about the main tendencies of modern perception of documentary films in our digitalized society – surely it has to be deeper and more continuous, as well as more developed methodologically and involve significantly greater number of respondents in both countries in order to show the actual tendencies without bias and exaggerations. However, this research is only the first attempt to analyze the interconnection between the viewer and the

84

documentary film in terms of different media sources influencing such a communication.

Still, we could speak about the way the students of both countries participated in the research see the role of documentary films in their lives today, as well as define the main similarities and differences in their definition of the main categories that make a documentary film worth watching. Both German and Ukrainian students have defined a documentary as an important tool of gaining information, claiming either its secondary and very often – its primary role in providing with new experiences and receiving audiovisual addition for the knowledge on different topics they had before.

The focus group participants expressed their additional demands to a documentary genre concerning main characteristics determining the truthfulness of documentaries they watch: confirmation of statements, the absence of bias, competent experts and witnesses of the events depicted in documentaries etc.

However, the aesthetic component as an important feature of a quality documentary film was not rejected too. However some German participants claimed their readiness to avoid such aesthetic components as music accompaniment or narration in a film in order to save the objectivity of the film, there were both German and Ukrainian views expressed claiming the aesthetic components such as a dramatic concept, an intrigue, emotional appeal of a film, sufficient music etc. to be present in a good documentary as well.

Participants of focus groups in both countries as well named similar reasons for watching documentary films – in most situations, the advice of people whose opinion they take into account, as well as an occasional find of a documentary on the topic interesting for the viewer caused them to watch it.

The important tendency which was revealed in the process of research was the great importance of preliminary search of additional information about a documentary film students were going to watch via the Internet. This option, which was rarely used in situations when participants watched documentaries on TV, became crucial the moment when they shifted to the Internet as another

85

important media source of documentary films as well. In this situation, the ideas expressed in the Internet by other viewers of specific documentaries were described by students as determinative in making their choice of a documentary they were going to watch. Moreover, although the critical reviews and information about the film directors of the specific documentaries were also marked as important source of preliminary opinion about the film, the greatest emphasis was put on opinions of other people’s opinions even though they could have been not as significant as professional reviews.

Speaking of the quantitative part of the research, firstly let us take into account its limitedness due to the difficulties in collecting information first of all among the German part of the research. It has caused the situation when two times less participants from the German side answered the questionnaire; however it also allowed to collect preliminary information concerning the research questions.

Unlike the results of the focus group research, more significant differences in answers of German and Ukrainian participant were found on this stage. Students of both countries marked TV and the Internet as the main sources of documentary films in their lives, mostly rejecting other additional sources as festivals, documentaries on DVD and cinema screenings. However, Germans show significantly bigger tendency of watching documentaries on TV (48% of respondents answered they often watch documentaries on TV); this can be explained by wider availability of quality documentary channels in Germany. Also Germans show more interest in the documentary genre, as far as we can conclude from answers of more than 60% of them who watch documentaries several times a week or once a week. Still, this tendency should not be taken for granted at least because of the possible bias caused by the fact that among German participants first of all the survey could have covered people deeply interested in the documentary genre.

Another interesting tendency which was outlined in the results of the survey was the situation when in case of using one main source of documentary film the role of another source was diminished significantly. Thus, 27% of Ukrainian

86

respondents and 29% of German ones show their choice either of the Internet or TV, considerably neglecting the second media.

There has been found a significant difference in using the Internet as a source of documentaries in Germany in Ukraine. While the majority or 70% of German respondents stated they were mainly using the Internet for watching documentaries online, Ukrainian students show their main interest in downloading documentaries from the Internet, using such notorious torrents as ex.ua or rutracker.org, ignoring the main principles of authorâ€&#x;s rights. The difference in the web behavior in this case could be explained by less strict Ukrainian laws which now are not concentrated on fight against piracy as it happens in other European countries such as Germany. Nonetheless, this part of the study can be considered as a very interesting topic for further researches.

Finally, the main tendencies of watching the documentaries using the Internet examined in this study show us that more than half of participants in both countries already consider the Internet as the main or the only source of documentaries for them. Moreover, up to 80% of research participants both in Germany and Ukraine stated that watching documentaries in foreign language is a usual experience for them. In addition, the majority of Ukrainian respondents and many German participants of the research said they comment on the documentary films they like in the Internet and advice films to others. These results together with the growing popularity of the Internet as the main media providing viewers with documentaries show us the possible international future of the best documentaries that are yet to come in case their producers will want to make them available not only at festivals, but also in the Internet.

Speaking of the further usage and development of this study, let us expect it will become the first trial in a wide range of further researches related to modern tendencies of relations between a documentary film and its viewers. Although such points as accuracy and bigger amount of participants are lacking in the present study, it raises the question of the Internet influence on the documentary genre, as well as pays attention to such undeservedly neglected areas of research as the

87

audience perception of documentaries and different media providing access to them.

The presence of vivid range of documentary films on official Internet sites is still not an easy task as far as today most of the documentary distributors cannot be sure that such an approach will give them money back. The survey shows that today none of Ukrainian participants and only few from the German side have ever paid for watching documentaries via the Internet. Most of Ukrainian respondents (65%) and many Germans students (46%) stated they do not think they are going to pay for a documentary on the Internet and always look for free sources of films. However, there also was the segment of respondents who could possibly pay for a documentary on the Internet – and the size of this segment was two times bigger in Germany (34%) than in Ukraine (17%). This issue can also become a starting point for another study, concentrating on reasons and possibilities of paid Internet-based screening of documentary films.

Moreover, not only the question of the Internet usage as a source of documentaries should be studied further. The discovered difference in attitude towards watching documentaries on TV in Germany and Ukraine is the important signal for the necessity of further researches of the practice of creating and functioning of documentary channels in Ukraine such as those German TV-sources which are so popular among German students.

88

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Appendix A

Figure A.1 Coverage of the Internet audience in Germany

97

Appendix B

Figure B. 1 – Growth of the Internet audience In Ukraine in comparison to April 2010 – nearly 3.9 mln. people or nearly 31.1% (14+)

Figure B. 2 – Ukrainian Internet audience structure by age

98

Appendix C

Figure C.1 The popularity of different sources of documentaries among Ukrainian and German respondents

99

Appendix D

Анкета для українських студентів Дякуємо за вашу згоду взяти участь у чинному дослідженні. Його результати будуть використані для аналізу тенденцій, пов’язаних із впливом та розвитком документального кіно за сучасних умов. Більшість питань цієї анкети – звичайний вибір одного або декількох варіантів відповідей, на заповнення всієї анкети не піде багато часу. Будь ласка, намагайтеся відповісти на всі запитання – це дуже важливо для загального результату. Інформація, отримана від респондентів, є конфіденційною. Думка кожного з вас буде врахована та матиме значний внесок у дослідження теми.

1. Як часто Ви дивитеся документальні фільми? a. кілька разів на тиждень b. раз в тиждень c. принаймні один документальний фільм щомісяця d. один фільм в декілька місяців e. дуже рідко f. ніколи не дивлюся (перехід до питання 13)

Ніколи Рідко Інколи Дуже часто Постійно

тальним Інше фільмом

докумен

з DVD

покази) Купую

льні

фестива

(не рах

фестива скачую з лях В сайтів) кінотеат

(онлайн На або

і

Інтернет

нню В

телебаче

По

2. Де ви найчастіше дивитеся документальне кіно?

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3. Як давно ви почали дивитися документальне кіно через Інтернет? a. Останні півроку b. Від півроку до року c. Приблизно 2-3 роки тому d. Навіть не пам‟ятаю – дуже давно e. Ніколи не дивлюся документальне кіно через Інтернет f. Інше 4. Які переваги ви бачите у перегляді документального кіно через Інтернет? (Ви можете обрати декілька варіантів відповіді і додати свої) a. Зручний та швидкий пошук потрібного фільму b. Свобода вибору фільму, який буду дивитися c. Можливість перегляду у будь-який зручний час d. Зручність перегляду в домашній атмосфері e. Менша кількість реклами у порівнянні з телебаченням f. Не треба платити за перегляд g. Інше 5. Які недоліки перегляду документалок через Інтернет найбільше вам заважають? (Ви можете обрати декілька варіантів відповіді і додати свої) a. Низька якість відео/звуку b. Набридлива реклама c. Відсутність обговорення після перегляду d. Інколи під час перегляду з‟ясовується, що фільм викладений не в повному обсязі e. Інше

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6. Коли ви дивитеся документальний фільм саме через Інтернет, це відбувається через те, що: a. Я завжди шукаю та дивлюся документальні фільми за допомогою Інтернету b. Знайшов/порекомендували посилання на цікаву документалку c. В мене немає телевізору / я не дивлюся телевізор, Інтернет головне джерело відео d. Хотілося подивитися щось, а по телевізору не було цікавого фільму e. Інше 7. Пригадайте, будь ласка, назви сайтів, де ви найчастіше знаходите документальні фільми (як спеціалізовані сайти, так і соц. мережі або відеосервіси): _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ 8. Коли

ви

користуєтеся

Інтернетом

для

пошуку/перегляду

документального кіно, найчастіше ви: (оберіть один варіант із зазначених нижче) a. За його допомогою знаходите та скачуєте відео b. Дивитеся документальний фільм он-лайн c. Використовуєте обидва варіанти d. Інше 9. Якщо обирати між переглядом документального кіно через Інтернет або іншим шляхом, ви обираєте такий варіант: (оберіть один варіант із зазначених нижче) a. Дивлюся виключно через Інтернет – найбільш зручний варіант b. Дивлюся не тільки через Інтернет, проте найчастіше – саме в ньому

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c. Інтернетом для перегляду документалок користуюся, проте це не головне джерело d. Шукаю документальне кіно в Інтернеті, тільки якщо не маю іншої можливості перегляду e. Ніколи не дивлюся документальне кіно через Інтернет f. Інше 10.Чи припускаєте ви можливість сплати за перегляд документального кіно онлайн / його скачування з Інтернету? (оберіть один варіант із зазначених нижче) a. Так, я інколи сплачую за перегляд документальних фільмів через Інтернет b. Теоретично це можливо, але я ще ніколи не сплачував(ла) за таку послугу c. Ні, я завжди шукаю ресурси з безкоштовним переглядом d. Можу заплатити, тільки якщо це буде єдина можливість подивитися фільм, який для мене дуже важливий e. Інше 11.Документальні фільми якою мовою ви дивитеся? (оберіть один варіант із зазначених нижче) a. Тільки рідною мовою або з перекладом b. Як рідною, так і іноземними мовами, якими володію c. Будь-якою мовою, головне, щоб субтитри були d. Інше 12.Чи коментуєте ви переглянуту в Інтернеті документалку, радите її іншим? a. Зазвичай залишаю відгук чи коментар на сайті перегляду, в соц. мережі або на блозі, кидаю посилання на фільм друзям

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b. Так, але тільки якщо фільм чимось мене вразив c. Зазвичай ні. Просто дивлюся – і все. d. Інше (питання для тих, хто відпоdів на питання 1 «ніколи не дивлюся»): 13.Чому ви взагалі не дивитеся документальне кіно? a. Мені не подобається цей тип фільмів b. В мене немає часу для перегляду c. Інше (блок загальних демографічних питань) 14. Скільки вам років? a. до 18 років b. 18 - 21 роки c. 21 - 25 років d. більше 25 років 15.В якому навчальному закладі ви навчаєтесь? (Напишіть повну або скорочену назву закладу) ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Дуже дякуємо за заповнення анкети! Ваші

відповіді

допоможуть

проаналізувати

роль

та

місце

документального кіно у житті сучасного студентства. Якщо вам цікаво дізнатися результати дослідження, надішліть лист за адресою: ilovedocu@gmail.com

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A questionnaire for German students

Thank you for readiness to take part in a present research. Its results will be used for analysis of tendencies related to the influence and development of a documentary film nowadays.

Most of the questions in this survey need a simple choice of one or several options – it will not take much of you time to answer them. Please, try to answer all the questions – this is important for the overall result.

Information provided by our respondents is confidential. An opinion of each of you will be taken into account and will have a significant influence on the topic of our research.

1. How often do you watch documentaries? a. Several times a week b. Once a week c. At least one documentary each month d. One documentary in several months e. Very seldom f. Never

Never Rarely Sometim es Often Always

Other

documentary

a with

I buy a DVD

screenings)

(non-festival

In a cinema

)

watching or festivals At downloading

(online

Internet

In

On TV

the

2. Where do you watch documentaries most often?

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3. When have you started watching documentary films via the Internet?

Last 6 months 6-12 months ago Approximately 2-3 years ago I donâ€&#x;t remember – I have started doing it long time ago I never watch documentaries using the Internet Other

4. Which advantages you find in watching documentary films using the Internet? a. Quick and convenient search of a necessary documentary b. Freedom of choice in choosing a film I will watch c. Possibility of watching whenever it is convenient for me d. Possibility to watch at home in comfort conditions e. Less amount of commercials in comparison to TV f. No need to pay for a viewing g. Other

5. Which disadvantages you see in watching documentaries via the Internet? a. Low video/audio quality b. Annoying advertisements c. Lack of discussion after the viewing d. Sometimes during the screening it turns out that a documentary is not in a full version e. Other

6. When you watch a documentary using exactly the Internet, it happens because: a. I always look for documentaries and watch them using the Internet

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b. I accidentally found / friends have advised me a link on an interesting documentary c. I donâ€&#x;t have a TV set / I don't watch TV, the Internet is the main video source for me d. I wanted to watch something and there wasnâ€&#x;t any interesting film on TV e. Other

7. Please mention the names of the sites where you find documentaries most often (these could be both specialized sites and social networks or video services): ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

8. When you use the Internet for searching/watching a documentary, more often you: a. Use it to find and download a film b. Watch video on-line c. Use both options d. Other

9. If you have to choose between watching a documentary using the Internet or other sources, you would prefer the next possibility: a. I watch documentaries only using the Internet – it is the most convenient choice for me b. I watch documentaries not only via the Internet, but it is the main source of documentaries for me

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c. Sometimes I use the Internet for watching documentaries, but it isnâ€&#x;t the main source of them for me d. I look for documentaries in the Internet only if I donâ€&#x;t have other possibilities for watching a documentary e. I donâ€&#x;t watch documentaries using the Internet at all f. Other

10.Is it possible that you may pay for watching a documentary film online / downloading it from the Internet? a. Yes, sometimes I pay for watching documentaries via the Internet b. Theoretically it is possible, but I have never paid for such a service before c. No, I always look for Internet resources with free of charge access to documentaries d. I could pay, but only in case it is the only possibility to watch a really important for me documentary e. Other f.

11.Which languages for documentary films are acceptable for you? a. Only native language or translated films b. Both native and foreign languages I know c. Any language is OK, I just need subtitles in the film d. Other e.

12.Do you comment on a documentary film you saw in the Internet, do you advice it to others? a. I usually leave a commentary on the site of viewing, in a social network or my blog b. Yes, but only if I was really thrilled with the film

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c. Usually I don‟t leave any comments. I just watch the film – and that‟s it d. Other e.

(The question for those who answered “Never” in the question 1) 13. Why do you never watch documentaries? a. I don't like this type of films b. I don't have time for watching films c. Other (The block of demographic questions) 14. How old are you? a. Less than 18 years b. 21 - 25 years c. More than 25 years 15. Which University are you studying in? (Please mention the full or the reduced name): ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Thank you for answering these questions!

Your answers will help to analyse the role and the place of a documentary film in lives of modern students.

In case you want to know the results of the research – send us a letter at ilovedocu@gmail.com