Core Response #4: Julia

For the past 4 weeks I have been watching every single documentary I can find. I don't know really know what prompted this, but here we are 40 Letterboxd entries later. Politics, technology, true crime, pop culture, anything will satisfy my current obsession with non-fiction. 

During this process I realised that a large portion of streaming documentaries I encounter are bundled as mini-series rather than standalone features as they once would have. I've also realised that very few documentary subjects actually deserve to be stretched out into an entire show, and when they are, they end up in engaging in some of the more unnervingly exploitative and trauma-porny aspects of documentary practice. But the documentary format has undeniably become smarter and much more commercial in the past decade. With documentary being able to quickly produce content that is relevant to current socio-political issues, driving suspense worthy of narrative content through true crime, and appealing to wider-audiences who may not be documentary fans through the use of pop documentaries, non-fiction TV really stands out as a lucrative and wide-appealing format. 

In the context of our readings on TV industry studies this week, this all started to make sense, specifically when considering Jenkins' idea regarding Media Convergence. I think that documentary and other non-fiction work really embodies this idea quite well, specifically given its developing use of technology, its rapid production potential, its wide-range distributability, and competitive quality between streaming brands.  Additionally, the creation of hybrid shows that blend documentary and reality TV, such as a show like Tiger King, has great potential to bring in a lot of media attention. 

As Jenkins states in his paper, this versatility and abundance of content feels like an inevitable product of our current socio-economic climate, and seems to be indicative of the kind of futurity that Caldwell gestures toward in his piece as well. The genius of the television format really has dominated our consumerist culture, and I think that our current relationship to non-fiction TV stands as a testament to that.