Matters of concern and interactive documentary: notes for a computational nonfiction

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay applies actor–network theory (ANT) and new materialism as a method for the study of interactive documentary. It provides an introduction to aspects of ANT and new materialism, arguing that interactive documentary theory’s ‘matters of concern’ need to be expanded to recognise and discuss the human and nonhuman material actors that make up any interactive documentary. It provides a series of theoretical ‘sketches’ to illustrate what a materialist study of interactive documentary might be, and how this could be enlarged into a broader field of practice and theory tentatively  labelled ‘computational nonfiction’. It concludes with a critique of these ‘sketches’ and begins to detail some of the actors present in the online nonfiction work The Whale Hunt.