Rethinking Documentary Reality: Temporal Regimes and Narrative Transformation from Flaherty to Digital Travel Vlogging

Abstract Book of the 12th International Conference on Social Sciences, Humanities and Education

Year: 2026

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Rethinking Documentary Reality: Temporal Regimes and Narrative Transformation from Flaherty to Digital Travel Vlogging

Dr. Önder M. Özdem

ABSTRACT:

This paper reconsiders documentary reality by tracing a shift from Robert J. Flaherty’s work to contemporary nonfiction media practices, such as digital travel vlogging exemplified by Noraly Schoenmaker. Both figures emerge from practices of exploration and “being there,” grounded in field-based experience rather than pre-scripted forms of visual storytelling. While Flaherty worked through extended immersion, Schoenmaker travels alone by motorcycle across remote regions, producing non-fiction content through continuous engagement with unpredictable environments. Despite this shared experiential basis, they are situated within different temporal regimes.
Drawing on Siegfried Kracauer’s notion of “found narrative,” the paper interprets Flaherty’s filmmaking as a process in which narrative emerges through temporal distance, enabling retrospective organization, staging, and selection. By contrast, contemporary digital travel vlogging and similar nonfiction practices operate under temporal immediacy, in which recording, editing, and distribution collapse into a continuous workflow shaped by platform logics and the demand for ongoing output. In this context, reality is not reconstructed after the fact but continuously processed through selection, framing, and ongoing self-editing, producing an effect of authenticity while remaining mediated.
The paper argues that technological advancement does not eliminate intervention but shifts when and how it takes place. Because “found narrative” depends on temporal distance, it becomes difficult to sustain under temporal immediacy. In response, the paper proposes the concept of a flow-based narrative, in which storytelling emerges through uninterrupted production and real-time dissemination. Rather than replacing earlier forms, this mode reflects a shift from retrospective organization to continuous, present-tense construction shaped by immediacy.

Keywords: Flow-Based Narrative; Found Narrative; Nonfiction Media; Temporal Distance; Temporal Immediacy