A STUDY ON AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF FACT AND FICTION IN DOCUMENTARY _______________________________________ A thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts _____________________________________________________ by TIFFANY CROUSE Dr. Stacey Woelfel Thesis Supervisor MAY 2017 © Copyright by Tiffany R. Crouse 2017 All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled FACT AND FICTION IN DOCUMENTARY: AUDIENCE PERCEPTION AND THE CHANGING GENRE OF DOCUMENTARY presented by Tiffany Crouse, a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Stacey Woelfel Professor Robert Greene Professor Brad Prager Professor Andrea Heiss ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A huge thank you to Stacey Woelfel for putting in way too much extra time to help me complete this. Knowing that this could not have been completed without your help as moderator, methodologist, and advisor, I can’t thank you enough. Thank you to all the members on my committee who gave me ideas and worked with me through this process. I would also like to thank Dr. Keith Greenwood for being a sounding board for ideas over the last two years. Thank you for working through my panicked ideas and frustrations to help me produce this. Lastly, I would like to thank Arin Liberman and everyone at True/ False for donating movie vouchers to help incentivize my research. Everyone likes a free documentary and I am sure this is what drew people to participate. Thank you all I could not have completed this without your help and support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .........................................................................................4 Theory ................................................................................................................4 3. METHODS .............................................................................................................19 Group make-up ..................................................................................................20 Collection ..........................................................................................................22 Measurements ....................................................................................................24 4. RESULTS ...............................................................................................................27 Findings ............................................................................................................35 5. CONCLUSIONS / ANALYSIS ..............................................................................38 Limitations .........................................................................................................42 Directions for Future Research...........................................................................42 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................43 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................46 APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................48 Pre-survey Information/Questions .....................................................................48 Columbia Transcriptions ....................................................................................52 Jefferson City Transcriptions .............................................................................69 Kansas City Transcriptions ...............................................................................87 iii FACT AND FICTION IN DOCUMENTARY: AUDIENCE PERCEPTION AND THE CHANGING GENRE OF DOCUMENTARY Tiffany Crouse Dr. Stacey Woelfel, Thesis Supervisor ABSTRACT This study addresses the disconnect between how a documentary consumer goes into a film thinking they are skeptical of the information; when they tend to have a crewed understanding of filmmaking and media literacy. An explanatory, experimental qualitative design was used. This involved collecting qualitative data through the use of focus groups and then expanding upon those data with in-depth interviews. In the first qualitative phase of the study, data was collected from volunteer participants from three different cities in Missouri. Three focus groups where conducted to recognize the volunteers’ understanding of the distinctions between fact and fiction in documentary and to assess whether that relates to further word-of-mouth misinformation. The second qualitative phase was conducted as follow up to the focus groups. In this study, the researcher looked at how members of the first data study consume documentaries. She did this through one-on-one in-depth semi-structured interviews with two participants from each of the focus groups. The researcher then conducted a textual analysis of the transcribed material that came from the qualitative data collected in both the focus groups and the interviews. Ultimately addressing the question: how do audience members understand the difference between fact and fiction in documentary? iv Chapter 1: Introduction When most people think of documentaries, they tend to think of a boring movie they were forced to watch in history class as a kid—a kind of factual representation of reality. The film was full of intelligent people talking about a faraway place or a distant past, making it a “traditional” expository documentary. But the documentary genera encompass much more than just expository documentaries. Over documentary history there have been plenty of documentaries that break these traditional storytelling models. Some even go far enough to transgress the most basic understanding of documentaries: that they are focused on the factual/true side of a story. One recent documentary that relies on this blend of fact and fiction is Penny Lane’s documentary NUTS! Lane even said she put fictional elements into her movie in order to highlight the role of fiction in documentary film (Lane, 2016). However, this was not the start of this conversation. One of the most well-known documentaries ever, Nanook of the North [1922], had, by cinematic standards, fictional elements. The subject, Nanook (whose actual name was Allakariallak), acted out sections of the film which where fictional—with some parts even being scripted (Jensen, 2016). Many will remember Animal Planet’s documentary Mermaids: The Body Found, a documentary about how mermaids could be real, which relied on debunked science (Switek, 2012). While there is nothing wrong with creating a fictional film in a documentary style, commonly known as a mockumentary, there is harm that can be done when a fictional film is passed off as a documentary. This misinformation can have lasting effects (Loftus, 2005). Even if we categorize “Mermaids” as docu-fiction1, some viewers may still 1 A docu-fiction is the intersection of documentary and fiction when the premise of the story is completely fictional or the main character is completely fictional (Rhodes, Springer, 2003). 1 believe the contents to be true. As this research will show if people are willing to believe that something is true and come to a documentary expecting to see something true, they will ultimately believe it is true. On the other side of this subject is Jonathan Oppenheimer’s Act of Killing. This is a documentary which takes its subjects and has them act for the camera in a way that is deliberately staged. Oppenheimer makes no apologies for this and the audience is left to figure out what is going on. The fake scenes acted out by killers and constructed by Oppenheimer involve the filmmaker in the subjects’ lives. The process leads to the climax of the film, a reflection of the killers about what they have done. This hands-on approach to directing documentary subjects as actors, while rare, is just another facet of this complex genre of study. This is not just a study about documentary, however it is a study about misinformation. As technology and the people who use it change so does our understanding of truth and trust. 2017 is a time of distrust of the news media, fake news, and echo chambers. When people can easily push falsities into the world and have them heard by thousands of people, eliminating confusion and misinformation is important. This study will approach how misinformation impacts audience members watching documentaries. This will be important in the coming years to help understand how misinformation is passed from content provider to consumer. The literature will show this is a complex subject upon which even people within the documentary community2 do not agree. The most basic ideas are debatable. The literature will show that within the documentary community, documentaries are not seen as something that must be factual, and many believe that they have no obligation to reveal to the audience that they are