Javad Khajavi – Decoding the Real: A Multimodal Social Semiotic Analysis of Reality in Animated Documentary
Posted on November 30th, 2011Reality is what we take to be true. What we take true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality. (Zukav, 1979, p. 328)
Introduction
Although animated documentary as a mode of representation has been around for about a century, academic studies began to consider various aspects of this increasingly popular medium almost a decade ago. Indeed, during the last few years, we can see an increase of scholarly interest on this subject. In spite of all these interests and attentions, however, “there is still a relative paucity in scholarly work on the form” (Honess Roe, 2009, p.2). This paucity of research in the domain of animated documentary has several reasons. A first reason might be, because animated documentaries are very diverse in forms and styles, and therefore it is difficult to analyze such diversity (Moore, 2010). It might also be rooted in that animated documentary, in its most radical form, tries to call ordinary ways of representing reality into question, and therefore it can be considered as an exceptional way of representing reality. Finally, and more importantly, the lack of a practical model for analyzing represented reality in animated documentary might be a further reason for scarcity of research in this area.
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