The Performance of Journalism in Documentaries

The field of journalism is evolving in contemporary society. To achieve high quality content and maintain audiences, journalists attempt to develop new and original forms of journalism. In order to accomplish this, the performance of journalism is combined with various media platforms in light of media convergence. One of these media platforms through which journalism is conducted, is the documentary. The documentary is a type of film which combines art with a reflection on reality. The inherent qualities of a documentary to investigate social topics and reflect on reality lend itself to the investigative goals of journalism. The question is how journalism is performed in the narratives of documentaries, while the artistic aspects of the documentary influence this process. Also, how can past conflicts be researched through this medium? The aims of this thesis are to investigate the following research question: to what extent documentaries perform journalism, while being a form of art, and dealing with a past conflict? The conflict of genocide, specifically the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia, is the main topic of this research. This thesis’ theoretical framework delves into the fields of journalism and documentary. The history, context and developments of journalism are discussed. Next to this, two types of journalism that share qualities with documentaries are investigated: slow journalism and narrative journalism. Then, the field of the documentary is examined. This framework looks into what constitutes a documentary, how it can reflect on reality and how narratives are applied in its creative process. Finally, the concept of collective memory is explored, as collective memory is connected to the investigation of conflicts in society. In order to answer this thesis’ research question, a narrative analysis is conducted. Through the application of two approaches to narrative analysis – the holistic content approach and the sociocognitive approach – four documentaries that deal with the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia are the units of analysis being researched. The holistic content approach focuses on the content of the narrative; the sociocognitive approach inspects its discourse and context. In the analysis, data will be labeled based on the documentaries’ narratives. The inductive nature of this analysis leads to interpretations of this data, from which conclusions are drawn. The main findings of this research are that the narrative qualities of documentaries are very fitting for the performance of narrative journalism. Also, the extensive investigation that documentaries perform is strongly suitable to the performance of slow journalism. The artistic aspects of the documentary do not affect, but support the investigations being done in these documentaries. Finally, documentaries dealing with past conflicts like genocide show a powerful ability to shape collective memory regarding these conflicts.