Professors

Foto Prof. Dr. Frédéric Dubois

Prof. Dr. Frédéric Dubois

Professor Digital Narratives – Theory

Professors

Author, Producer, Journalist and Scholar specialized in digital media; award-winning interactive narratives such as ATTERWASCH and FIELD TRIP

Phone
+49 221 920188-0
E-Mail

Vita

Frédéric Dubois is a Canadian-German author, producer, journalist, and scholar of digital media. He has co-authored and produced award-winning interactive storytelling features such as »Atterwasch« (2014) and »Field Trip« (2019) and co-edited two books: the collection of essays »Autonomous Media« (2005) and graphic novel »Extraction! Comix Reportage« (2007). Frédéric has worked with the National Film Board of Canada and ARTE on digital projects such as »GDP« (web coordinator, 2009), »The Hole Story Interactive« (author, 2011) and »Fort McMoney« (game master and partnerships, 2013).

He has travelled a number of countries as a freelance reporter, telling stories of communities affected by resource-intensive industries (e.g., fisheries, mining). He has further specialized his journalistic practice on internet- and data-related topics, working with nonprofits such as the Association for Progressive Communications and the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). Since 2012, he is the co-founder and managing editor of Internet Policy Review—an open access journal on internet regulation—published by HIIG.

Aside from coaching and training digital and transmedia narrative projects (e.g., ARD.ZDF medienakademie, DOK Leipzig, Institute of documentary film Prague), Frédéric has co-organised storytelling hackathons, the Netzdoku interactive documentary meet‐ups, as well as the VR Conference for Journalism and Documentary, Berlin.

As a media scholar, he has completed a research-creation PhD in film production at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in 2021, with a thesis entitled »Interactive documentary production and societal impact: the case of Field Trip«. That same year, he was a fellow at the Visual Narratives Laboratory (vnLab) of the Łódź Film School. Previously, he did action research on alternative and community media’s use of the internet, including with a Master’s thesis in communications at Université du Québec à Montréal (2005).

Teaching and Research Focus

Selection

  • Media studies (i.e., media impact studies, media innovations, production studies)
  • Cultural studies (i.e., open culture, cultural values)
  • Internet studies
  • Scholarly communication (i.e., open access, novel formats)

Full scholarly profile: ORCID

Publications

Selection

Dubois, F., & Thiele, L. (2022). Learning by Doing: Applying Research-Creation to Interactive and Immersive Documentary. Interactive Film & Media Journal, 2(2).

Dubois, F., Thiele, L. (2022). The tools of research-creation, Open Media Studies Blog, 29 Oct.

Dubois, F. (2022). An Overview of Research-creation in and with Interactive Media, International Journal of Creative Media Research, Issue 9 / Oct 2022.

Dubois, F., & Thiele, L. (2022). Learning by Doing: Applying Research-Creation to Interactive and Immersive Documentary. Interactive Film & Media Journal, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.32920/ifmj.v2i2.1567

Vázquez-Herrero, J.; Dubois, F.; Lovato, A. (2022). Narrativas interactivas como espacios de participación política en la ciberdemocracia. En García-Orosa, B. (coord.), 25 años de ciberdemocracia en España: estrategias y actores emergentes. Pamplona: Thomson Reuters Aranzadi. ISBN 978-84-1124-380-3

Dubois, F. (2021). Interactive Documentary Production and Societal Impact: The Case of Field Trip. Doctoral thesis. Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF.

Dubois, F. (2020). Media innovation and social impact: the case of living documentaries. The Journal of Media Innovations, 6(1), 23-37.

Dubois, F. (2017). Interactivity as a key feature redefining documentary reality. Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication, 21(30), 31-44.

Awards

2019  Field Trip

Open source documentary | Lovie Awards & Gold & People’s Award 

2014  Atterwasch

Documentary | Lead Award Gold – Webfeature of the Year

2013  Fort McMoney 

Documentary | Grimme Online Award

2011  The Hole Story

Documentary | The FWA, Site of the Day

2009  GDP

Documentary | Webby Award - Best Documentary Series

»Great grand narratives and everyday micro-stories are part of our most basic human fabric and experience. The challenge is to effectively use, combine, tweak, assemble, re-assemble and wrap art, technology and story around an intent. Let’s try.«

Frédéric Dubois

Professor Digital Narratives – Theory