Our project will be a documentary focusing of the psychological benefits, policy structures and environmental elements of community gardens. As a psychology major, I will research the psychological frameworks that make documentaries emotional and motivating for audiences in order to design a persuasive film.

Bondebjerg, I. (2014). Documentary and Cognitive Theory: Narrative, Emotion and Memory. Media and Communication, 2(1), 13-22.

 

 This source discusses cognitive theory in relation to documentary filmmaking and how these types of media can shape the audiences emotions and cognitions. “There is a clear ambition in cognitive theory to try to understand to what extend human phenomena are defined by universal and biological dimensions and how these dimensions interact with and are influenced by social and cultural conditions and historical change” (Bondebjerg, 2014, p. 13). This theory tries not to replace social and cultural studies, but add the assumption that there are biological dimensions that shape our experiencing of reality. Using the cognitive theory as a framework for analyzing case studies of documentary films, such as An Inconvenient Truth by Davis Guggenheim featuring Al Gore, which has an authoritative structure full of facts and compelling arguments, but also triggers emotional and nostalgic memories through visuals and narrative. This will be a useful source in helping us plan our video’s structure and what imagery and narrative we want to have and to whom will it influence.
Ristovska, S. (2016). Strategic witnessing in an age of video activism. Media, Culture & Society, 38(7), 1034–1047.
This article presents an interesting conceptual framework around how the professionalization of activist documentaries are used as mediums for strategic witnessing and encouraging action and audience responsibility. The argument of the article is that there is a shift towards professionalizing activist videos for specific legal or political audiences that is potentially decreasing pubic cognizance of global ethical violations. This brings an interesting theory into the planning of our video, because we will have to think of our intended audience and what media presentation they resonate most with, but also who we are leaving out of the audience as we choose certain elements. Furthermore, this article deals with the ideas of witnessing as a structure of prompting action and responsibility, which is relevant for our project as well.