Documentary Realism, Sampling Theory and Peircean Semiotics: electronic audiovisual signs (analog or digital) as indexes of reality

• Main Author: Hélio Godoy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal (UBI) & Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brasil (UNICAMP) 2007-07-01
• Series: Doc On-Line: Revista Digital de Cinema Documentário
• Subjects: Documentary realism; transduction; index.
• Online Access: http://www.doc.ubi.pt/02/helio_godoy.pdf

This paper addresses Documentary Realism, focusing on thephysical phenomena of transduction that take place in analog and digital audiovisual systems, herein analyzed in the light of the Sampling Theory, within the framework of Shannon and Weaver’s Information Theory. Transduction is a process by which one type of energy is transformed into another, or by which information is transcodified. Within the scope of Documentary Realism, it cannotbe claimed that electronic audiovisual signs, because of their technical digital features lead to a rupture with reality. Rather, the digital documentary, based on electronic digital cinematography, is still an index of reality.