Cinematic journalism: the political economy and ‘emotional truth’ of documentary film

ABSTRACT

News organizations in recent years have embraced documentary film. From streaming ventures to Academy Award nominations, newsrooms are producing documentaries to reach new audiences and maintain their relevance in changing media cultures. This study examines documentary’s surging popularity among news outlets and addresses two questions: How does the political economy of media affect filmmakers’ editorial decisions and aesthetic choices? And, how do seemingly commonplace audiovisual and production techniques – such as music, lighting, sound design, and directing – complicate journalistic norms? Drawing on in-depth interviews with journalistic filmmakers (n = 24), the study offers three findings: the political economy of digital media is altering the production and distribution models for documentary, creating ethical dilemmas for filmmakers; the relational dynamics among filmmakers, participants, and audiences significantly inform the ethical frameworks that filmmakers use; and the ‘emotional truth’ of documentary storytelling forces filmmakers to reevaluate their conceptions of objectivity and neutrality. The study illuminates the relationship between documentary and journalism, and details how filmmakers are navigating the increasingly-blurry boundaries between these fields.

KEYWORDS:

• Documentary
• journalism
• political economy
• relational journalism
• filmmaking
• streaming
• objectivity
• emotional truth‌

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the filmmakers who shared their time and insights with me. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Interviews were recorded with permission and transcribed using an online software program. I reviewed all transcripts by hand and analyzed them using a three-step method: writing memos, open coding, and focused coding (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 2011). During step one, writing memos, I read the transcripts closely and made notes. Step two consisted of a line-by-line reading of the transcripts to uncover themes and patterns. During this step, I relied on a feature in the online software program that displays frequent keywords in the text – in this case, documentary, audience, facts, sources, and ethical. The third stage involved another close reading of the text with these keywords in mind.

2 According to one report, 17,436 media workers were laid off in the first half of 2023 (1,972 of whom worked in broadcast, digital, and print news). https://www.spj.org/news.asp?ref=2946

3 Broadcast (20%) and cable television (29.6%) made up less than half of all TV use in July 2023, according to Nielson. Streaming made up 38.7% of all TV usage, an all-time high since Nielson began tracking viewing time by platform in 2021 (Porter, 2023).

4 Pseudonyms are used to protect participants’ privacy. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Emerson College (Protocol #23-010-F-E-10/31).

5 Hasan Minhaj used the phrase ‘emotional truth' in a 2023 New Yorker article to describe how he mixes factual and fabricated information in his stand-up comedy routines. Minhaj's description of ‘emotional truth’ is very different from how journalists in this study are using the phrase (see: Malone, 2023).

6 In March 2023, The Video Consortium and International Documentary Association (https://documentary.org/) hosted a virtual summit to discuss the similarities and differences among documentary film production and visual journalism. The four-part series included sessions on funding, fact-checking, and distribution/impact.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gino Canella

Gino Canella is a researcher and documentary filmmaker. His work focuses on media activism, visual culture, and labor. He produces documentary films with grassroots organizers and researches how movements use media to organize and disrupt dominant narratives about race, class, and labor. He is the author of Activist Media: Documenting Movements and Networked Solidarity (Rutgers University Press, 2022).