Watching the World

This is the first book to focus on the reasons for the so-called documentary "boom" in cinemas and on DVD. It is the first book length study of audiences for documentary film and TV in fifteen years. It covers a range of recent films and TV programming and a variety of formats and topics. It combines audience research with close textual analysis of documentaries and contexts of their production and circulation. It considers the politics and the ethics and the aesthetics of documentary films.