Documentary, Multi-Platform Production and Cosmopolitan Dialogues

This article analyses the documentary strategies followed in the transnational documentary projects Why Democracy (2007) and Why Poverty (2012), both initiated by BBC and DR, the main British and main Danish public service broadcaster, in collaboration with the NGO organisation Steps International. The two projects relate to and reflect the role and function of media and documentary in a globalised world. The two case studies will be discussed in the context of digital, transnational multi-platform documentaries and tendencies in other documentaries on globalisation. The article and analysis is based on theories of globalization and cosmopolitanism (Beck, Delanty, Appadurai and Held) and will take up issues in documentary theory connected to the social, cultural and political forms and functions of documentary in a global context.