Papers by Norman Zafra
Studies in Documentary Film, 2022
This research is a creative exploration of transmedia's ability to offer up a model of distributi... more This research is a creative exploration of transmedia's ability to offer up a model of distribution and audience engagement for political documentary. Transmedia, as is well known, is a fluid concept. It is not restricted to the activities of the entertainment industry and its principles also reverberate in the practice of political and activist documentary projects. This practice-led research draws on data derived from the production and circulation of Obrero, an independent transmedia documentary. The project explores the conditions and context of the Filipino rebuild workers who migrated to Christchurch, New Zealand after the earthquake in 2011. Obrero began as a film festival documentary that co-exists with two other new media iterations, each reaching its respective target audience: a web documentary, and a Facebook-native documentary. This study argues that relocating the documentary across new media spaces not only expands the narrative but also extends the fieldwork and investigation, forms like-minded publics, and affords the creation of an organised hub of information for researchers, academics and the general public. Treating documentary as research can represent a novel pathway to knowledge generation and the present case study, overall, provides an innovative model for future scholarship.
Visual Communication, 2021
This article employs a practice-led methodology to offer a creative examination of the digital tr... more This article employs a practice-led methodology to offer a creative examination of the digital trends, online practices, and shifting aesthetics of political documentary as it migrates in the interstices of social media. At the centre of this research is the production and circulation of Facebook-native microdocumentaries, labelled under the rubric of compact cinematics and radical videos. As a networked platform, Facebook affords opportunities for media experimentation and allows filmmakers to innovate political and sociable contents. I argue that documentaries circulated on Facebook, particularly those with social change outreach, need to undergo an aesthetic adjustment to respond to ongoing ruptures in traditional storytelling and to address the shifting consumption modes of audiences online.
Media Practice and Education, 2020
The do-it-yourself (DIY) media culture on the internet is often attached to the power of ordinary... more The do-it-yourself (DIY) media culture on the internet is often attached to the power of ordinary users to produce, reproduce, and disseminate content in a decentralised communication platform. The same ethos of self-sufficiency facilitates the proliferation of new style and interactive documentaries designed by professional-amateurs and distributed mainly for the web. No longer the sole province of highly funded media experiments, the creation of interactive projects has been conceivable with the assistance of open source and off-the-shelf authoring software. The present case study investigates this trend by drawing on a post-textual analysis of the author’s independently produced and DIY interactive documentary (i-doc). Using a practitioner-researcher perspective, I explain the creative decisions involved in producing a political i-doc and interrogate how a website performs as a format of small-scale independent documentary project. I argue that the implication of DIY ethos on i-doc production is twofold: it reminds us to focus on functionality over beauty and prompts us to prioritise the story over interactivity. This article concludes on the potential of DIY ethos to fuel the production of citizen i-docs in the Global South.
Pacific Journalism Review, 2020
This article is a critical commentary of how political documentary embodies the traits and functi... more This article is a critical commentary of how political documentary embodies the traits and functions of alternative journalism. I explore this notion through Obrero ('worker') my independent documentary project about the labour migration of Filipino workers to Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zea-land, after the earthquake in 2011. This article maps out the points at where the theories and practices of alternative media and documentary intersect. Analysing political documentary as a format of alternative journalism has links to the long tradition of film and video production as a tool for social critique. As a form of practice-based research, Obrero falls under the rubric of alternative journalism-able to represent the politically marginal sectors of the polity and report on issues underreported in the mainstream press. This article concludes that a distribution plan that is responsive to fragmenting audiences works best when alternative journalism no longer targets a niche but transborder audiences.
Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 2018
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370 has been one of the most highly discussed an... more The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370 has been one of the most highly discussed and debated crises in recent times. The situation has put the organisation into the spotlight of global attention both as a business entity and as an extension of the Malaysian government. Drawing on mediating the media model (Pang, 2010) and information processing and knowledge management framework (Coombs, 2012), this study evaluates the air carrier's relationship with the media and online communication strategies during the crucial first two weeks of the crisis. The data were collected from Malaysia Airlines' traditional and new media public relations practices and were analysed using a qualitative case study methodology (Yin, 2009). This study argues that the unfavourable representation of Malaysia Airlines by its media stakeholders was complicated by both controlled and uncontrolled crisis elements ranging from information void to fragile relationship with the press.
New style media coverage of natural disasters is increasing in volume and immediacy, with knock-o... more New style media coverage of natural disasters is increasing in volume and immediacy, with knock-on implications for strategic communication. Advanced digital reporting and producing innovations have created an altered approach by journalists, leading to augmented demands on public relations practitioners managing a crisis. Drawing on journalistic experience covering the Typhoon Haiyan disaster in the Philippines, this paper analyses three digital advancements in disaster reporting that directly influence effective media relations during a crisis: the backpack equipment, drone cameras, and data infographics. This paper supports the theory that the symbolic relationship between media management and journalists can be used successfully to support an informed public, and outlines a model of Digital Coopetition, whereby the digital requirements bring the two competing agendas of strategic communication and journalism into a cooperative sphere. With more natural disasters being in the news, it is timely to review how public relations practitioners can strategically address the needs of new style journalists, and recognise the potential of emerging reporting technologies in targeting their key publics.
Pacific Journalism Review, 2018
This article offers an analysis of digital technologies’ implications on disaster reporting using... more This article offers an analysis of digital technologies’ implications on disaster reporting using the perspective of a journalism-documentary practitioner. The study uses Typhoon Haiyan disaster as a case study and is based on an ethnographic analysis of the author’s backpack news production in post-disaster regions in the Philippines. It supports the notion that media convergence adds valuable new elements to storytelling and presentation of news but it only refines and not replaces traditional newsgathering methodologies. Drawing on the theories of emotional discourses in disaster reporting (Pantti, Wahl-Jorgensen & Cottle, 2012), media convergence and technological determinism, this article argues that journalists practising the backpack-style are confronted with more technical issues and even higher stress-level working in disaster zones, but being solo provides more opportunities to practise humanistic storytelling. Backpack journalists immersing in disaster zones can collect more personal narratives from survivors of a disaster who feel less intimidated by their use of informal equipment.
Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 2018
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370 has been one of the most highly discussed an... more The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' flight MH370 has been one of the most highly discussed and debated crises in recent times. The situation has put the organisation into the spotlight of global attention both as a business entity and as an extension of the Malaysian government. Drawing on mediating the media model and information processing and knowledge management framework , this study evaluates the air carrier's relationship with the media and online communication strategies during the crucial first two weeks of the crisis. The data were collected from Malaysia Airlines' traditional and new media public relations practices and were analysed using a qualitative case study methodology . This study argues that the unfavourable representation of Malaysia Airlines by its media stakeholders was complicated by both controlled and uncontrolled crisis elements ranging from information void to fragile relationship with the press. The current research explores how Malaysia Airlines handled one of its important key stakeholders -the media -during the actual crisis stage after the disappearance of its flight MH370. Drawing on Coombs' (2012) information processing and knowledge management framework, and Pang's (2010) mediating the media model, this study examines the media relations and crisis communication strategies employed by the Malaysian authorities, in order to determine which strategies could be considered efficient and which actions could have caused reputational damage. This study is limited to the first two-week response stage of Malaysia Airlines, analysing the data from its online crisis communication and the selected published news reports on the crisis.
This article offers an analysis of digital technologies' implications on disaster reporting using... more This article offers an analysis of digital technologies' implications on disaster reporting using the perspective of a journalism-documentary practitioner. The study uses Typhoon Haiyan disaster as a case study and is based on an ethnographic analysis of the author's backpack news production in post-disaster regions in the Philippines. It supports the notion that media convergence adds valuable new elements to storytelling and presentation of news but it only refines and not replaces traditional newsgathering methodologies. Drawing on the theories of emotional discourses in disaster reporting (Pantti, Wahl-Jorgensen & Cottle, 2012), media convergence and technological determinism, this article argues that journalists practising the backpack-style are confronted with more technical issues and even higher stress-level working in disaster zones, but being solo provides more opportunities to practise humanistic storytelling. Backpack journalists immersing in disaster zones can collect more personal narratives from survivors of a disaster who feel less intimidated by their use of informal equipment.
This study examines the uses and gratifications of media by indigenous peoples in Sitio Quinao, a... more This study examines the uses and gratifications of media by indigenous peoples in Sitio Quinao, a small tribal community of Dumagat people found in Rizal Mountains in the Philippines. It focuses on Dumagats not as objects or subjects of media texts but as active audience of mass media, a phenomenon brought by the changing political and socio--economic profile of cultural and indigenous groups in the Philippines.
Conference Presentations by Norman Zafra
New style media coverage of natural disasters is increasing in volume and immediacy, with knock-o... more New style media coverage of natural disasters is increasing in volume and immediacy, with knock-on implications for crisis communication. Advanced digital reporting and producing innovations have created an altered approach by journalists, leading to augmented demands on public relations practitioners managing the crisis. Drawing on journalist experience covering the Typhoon Haiyan disaster in the Philippines, this paper analyses three technological advancements in disaster reporting that directly influence effective media relations during a crisis: the backpack journalists who use light digital equipment to report and humanise a disaster story; the drone journalists who utilise pilotless aerial cameras to video the disaster; and the data journalists who use software and applications to collect, summarise and interpret huge volume of disaster data for online reporting. This paper demonstrates that effective media management during a disaster requires public relations practitioners to strategically address the needs of these digital journalists, and recognise the potential of emerging reporting technologies in targeting their key publics.
Thesis Chapters by Norman Zafra
Obrero (“worker”): Practising and theorising political documentary across transmedia platforms
University of Auckland ResearchSpace, 2020
This thesis is a creative and critical exploration of how transmedia storytelling meshes with pol... more This thesis is a creative and critical exploration of how transmedia storytelling meshes with political documentary’s nature of representing social realities and goals to educate and promote social change. I explore this notion through Obrero (“worker”), my independently produced transmedia and transjournalistic documentary project that explores the conditions and context of the Filipino rebuild workers who migrated to Christchurch, New Zealand after the earthquake in 2011. While the project should appeal to New Zealanders, it is specifically targeted at an audience from the Philippines. Obrero began as a film festival documentary that co-exists with strategically refashioned Web 2.0 variants, a social network documentary and an interactive documentary (i-doc).
Using data derived from the production and circulation of Obrero, I interrogate how the documentary’s variants engage with differing audiences and assess the extent to which this engagement might be effective. This thesis argues that contemporary documentary needs to re-negotiate established film aesthetics and practices to adapt in the current period of shifting technologies and fragmented audiences. Documentary’s migration to new media platforms also creates a demand for filmmakers to work with a transmedia state of mind—that is, the capacity to practise the old canons of documentary making while comfortably adjusting to new media production praxis, ethics, and aesthetics. Then Obrero itself, as the creative component of this thesis, becomes an instance of research through creative practice. It does so in two respects: adding new knowledge about the context, politics, and experiences of the Filipino workers in New Zealand; and offering up a broader model for documentary engagement, which I analyse for its efficacy in the digital age.
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Papers by Norman Zafra
Conference Presentations by Norman Zafra
Thesis Chapters by Norman Zafra
Using data derived from the production and circulation of Obrero, I interrogate how the documentary’s variants engage with differing audiences and assess the extent to which this engagement might be effective. This thesis argues that contemporary documentary needs to re-negotiate established film aesthetics and practices to adapt in the current period of shifting technologies and fragmented audiences. Documentary’s migration to new media platforms also creates a demand for filmmakers to work with a transmedia state of mind—that is, the capacity to practise the old canons of documentary making while comfortably adjusting to new media production praxis, ethics, and aesthetics. Then Obrero itself, as the creative component of this thesis, becomes an instance of research through creative practice. It does so in two respects: adding new knowledge about the context, politics, and experiences of the Filipino workers in New Zealand; and offering up a broader model for documentary engagement, which I analyse for its efficacy in the digital age.
Using data derived from the production and circulation of Obrero, I interrogate how the documentary’s variants engage with differing audiences and assess the extent to which this engagement might be effective. This thesis argues that contemporary documentary needs to re-negotiate established film aesthetics and practices to adapt in the current period of shifting technologies and fragmented audiences. Documentary’s migration to new media platforms also creates a demand for filmmakers to work with a transmedia state of mind—that is, the capacity to practise the old canons of documentary making while comfortably adjusting to new media production praxis, ethics, and aesthetics. Then Obrero itself, as the creative component of this thesis, becomes an instance of research through creative practice. It does so in two respects: adding new knowledge about the context, politics, and experiences of the Filipino workers in New Zealand; and offering up a broader model for documentary engagement, which I analyse for its efficacy in the digital age.