Why can documentaries be even more powerful than fiction films in shaping beliefs about, and attitudes towards, other social groups? Why is factual media so instrumental in creating, maintaining but also reducing stigma?
Factual media claim a factual correspondence with the real world. So, even though we know that documentaries cannot be completely objective and authentic, we assume that the depicted characters, locations, events and situations exist in reality.
We also trust the documentary source (filmmaker, broadcaster, etc.) to not lie about or misrepresent these characters, locations, events and situations. This is the case if the documentary does not contradict or challenge our held knowledge, and if we have no reason to distrust the source.
This has implications for the perceived realism and believability of factual media.
Realism: What we see on screen appear to be real people, real locations, real events and real situations.
Believability: The documentary source is usually trusted, unless there is a concrete reason not to do so.
For example, the above documentary Young Virgins for Sale portrays young Romani women being sold in bride markets in Bulgaria. It maintains the stigma of this community by:
- Labelling: making their group difference very obvious
- Stereotyping: attaching negative traits to this difference, such as being primitive and amoral
- Separation: emphasising the distinction between the ‘normal’ Europeans (us – the ingroup) versus the ‘abnormal’ Romani (the others – the outgroup)
Viewers are usually not aware of these stigma mechanisms, because they don’t automatically question the documentary’s realism and believability. However, the perceived realism and believability can also work to reduce stigma. If the documentary challenged Romani stereotypes, viewers would have probably absorbed this alternative portrayal and perhaps changed their negative attitudes.
For this to happen, however, one documentary alone is not enough. More filmmakers would need to make documentaries about Romani people that depict them in non-stigmatising ways.
So, documentaries are a powerful force in shaping our attitudes towards other social groups.
For more information about documentary, stigma and social impact, see Chapter 1 and Chapter 3.
Read the next section on social categorisation, which is the root cause of stigmatisation