Documentary films and social development in Ghana, a study of joy news next to die documentary

Abstract

Documentary films have been identified as important contributors to social cultural life and key components of democratic structures. Thus, scholars have argued that documentary films are active vehicles for developmental issues. This study through the lens of reader-response theory and social development theory critically examined the messages embedded in the 'Next to Die’ documentary film. It also explored how the documentary film used the social development components in it to demonstrate systemic societal changes, as well as described the documentary film production techniques embedded in the documentary. The study also examined how the identified documentary film production techniques reinforced the ideals of social development. The study revealed that the 'Next to Die' documentary was encoded with the following themes to drive its message: congestion, dejection and solicitation. The study also showed that while the documentary highlighted social development themes such as interventionism, productivism and universalism, it employed voice-over, archival footage and interview techniques in bringing to light the severity, authenticity and intelligibility of these ideals of social development in the documentary. Therefore, the study concludes that the ‘Next to Die’ documentary reinforced the intensity of the risk experienced in the documentary by using different documentary film techniques to give the viewer a sense of authenticity and to create a relation on the importance of human life with the viewer.