The Popularity of Documentaries

 

The Popularity of Documentaries

The rise and popularity of documentaries is solidified within its ability, to educate, and inspire its viewers, whilst nonetheless, entertaining and engaging an audience.

The immediate appeal of the genre is to the fact that documentaries portray a sense of authenticity and realism, that we often lack in more fictional stories that seek to purely entertain its audience. Continuing, documentaries help awaken new perspectives, and are often created in a form of activism, and hope to inform a wider audience of a specific subject matter and provoke wider conversations. For example, nature documentaries are a brilliant source and testament to woven storytelling and factual research studies together, to create a powerful medium on educating and raising awareness on the state of the planet.

The success of ‘Tiger King’ sparked a significant rise in true crime documentaries, especially with the global pandemic creating the space to addictively binge these stories in the span of just none sitting. This led to streaming platforms receive a large amount of engagement from its documentaries. Another aspect to the surge in popularity of the genre, is society’s desirable curiosity marks a large aspect to the appeal of documentaries- with the desperation to know more, edging viewers to the genre.

The subgenre, biographical documentaries, is a huge phenomenon, as it provides us exclusive and personal perspectives on famous people within the media, and in a world of fan culture this appeals entirely to both casual and active viewers. The subgenre sees a range of storytelling, with documentaries like Senna, Amy, and The Christopher Reeve Story documenting on the life and legacy of celebrities. Often, displayed through archival footage, interviews, and exclusive information. This form of documentary seeks a target audience that is culturally online, with a deep understanding for pop culture. Billie Eilish's documentary has a target audience of a teenage demographic. Whereas ‘The Christopher Reeve Story’ pivots towards an older male audience. Comparing the two, we can gather the sense of versatility within the sub-genre, and how widely formatted it is for different audiences.