"Something Is Wrong in the Education System": Manufacturing a Crisis in the School Documentary

• In Event: Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: Media, Culture, and Learning SIG Roundtable: Exploring Media and Social Practices in Many Forms

Abstract

One of the contributions to the public’s ideas about what’s happening in education is the documentary film. This study examines the “truth claims” (the claim to represent the real not fictional world) documentary filmmakers put forth that serve to educate the public about the state of education in the United States.

This presentation considers the narrative built by documentaries about education through the qualitative content analysis of 27 documentaries produced for the theater, television, and Youtube between the years 1993 and 2015. That narrative is built through a body of work that uses the conventions of the genre to comment on crises in order to persuade audiences of the problems and solutions that are important in education today.

Author

• Jacqueline Bach, Louisiana State University