Spectators of Mockumentaries: Mockumentaries in the Information Society

Abstract

The existence of a significant number of documentaries which are not intended to represent reality but to (re)create it has allowed that mockumentaries to become a subgenre halfway between reality and fiction. Mockdocumentaries aim to play with the status acquired over the years by the spectators of documentaries, parodying the conventions of the genre and criticizing certain cultural or social codes. Simultaneously, mockumentaries are a very useful tool to analyse the current social and cultural context of the image and the media in the society of information. Mockumentaries are therefore a significant product of the confusion between reality and unreality at a time when digital technology is able to simulate reality with absolute veracity.