Documentaries aim to inform, educate, or entertain audiences using real footage of events or interviews to describe real situations. Bill Nichols analyzed documentaries and found they reveal contemporary issues and problems to bring attention to, operating where social issues are consciously addressed through factual arguments rather than private fantasies. Prospect theory also applies as documentaries encourage viewers to form their own perspectives on issues and make choices, influencing decisions. However, Steve Barnett argued documentaries have been "dumbed down" for television audiences focused more on ratings than serious, informative content.

1. DOCUMENTRAIES

2. WHAT IS A DOCUMENTARY?
• Documentaries contain real life footage
about real situations or events in the
hopes of informing, educating or
entertaining an audience.
• Some documentaries cant have real life
footage so instead they use interviews to
describe and explain the event allowing
the audience to visualise. They might also
use reconstructions where actors will act
out the scene but these must be factual
and are usually paired with a voice over
that describes the scene

3. BILL NICHOLS
• Wrote the book “Representing Reality” which suggests that documentaries reveal
the issues of what is happening at the time (Zeitgeist)
• While studying documentaries he notices the please and appeal of
documentaries lie in the fact that it can help us to see timely issues that we need
to bring attention to.
• Current problems are seen through the media and are on different media
platforms suggesting they are easily manipulated depending on the social issues
and cultural values. Documentaries can help to expose real world issues that
might otherwise be hidden.
• “Documentary attends to social issues of which we are consciously aware.
Itoperates where the reality-attentive ego and superego live. Fiction
harboursechoes of dreams and daydreams, sharing structures of fantasy with
them,whereas documentary mimics the canons of expository argument, the
making of a case, and the call to public rather than private response.”

4. PROSPECT THEORY
• Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky developed this theory. This
theory describes alternatives involving risk and uncertain
outcomes or where the outcome is known and predictable.
• This is very relevant to documentaries as most documentaries
encourage the viewer to make a choice and create your own
perspective. Significant choices can be made after watching the
documentary and it is these decisions that are spurred on by the
media consumed.

5. STEVE BARNETT
• Steve Barnett looked at the increasing want and need for
television to broadcast things that win ratings rather than
serious, informative documentaries.
• Believed that documentaries have been ‘dumbed down’ for the
audience to want to watch and what they have become used to.
• Can be seen about getting more ratings that educating the
audience on certain topics.