Regarded as one of the most impactful environmentalist documentaries, A Plastic Ocean explores ideas of sustainability in everyday life and educates people on the alarming truths about plastic pollution as well as suggesting solutions that can be applied immediately (Boulissière, 2019). The film begins with introducing Craig Leeson, a journalist searching for the elusive blue whale, and instead finding plastic waste which has intruded the waters. He ends up teaming up with scientists and free divers to travel to 20 different locations for 4 years to educate people on the solutions as well as discover the extent of the plastic pollution in the oceans. The broadness of the documentary genre has allowed for the public to be influenced by these types of media which has led to changes being made in society. Documentaries are seen as one of the most powerful tools in molding minds, creating social change and making a positive impact because they create a sense of being connected to the viewer which engages their emotions and empowers them to take action. Documentaries are no longer regarded as a passive experience for learning and entertainment, as they have exceeded their purpose by becoming a way of sparking debate and molding public opinion (Nisbet & Aufderheide, 2009). They have become a unique way of conveying events and issues as they have been used by the mainstream media as well as by independent companies and have been widely operated within communities for movements about equity. They have had influences on the public and have created awareness as well as discussion about relevant issues. This essay will argue that documentaries can have a large impact on positive change which can be seen when analyzing the societal change inspired from the documentary A Plastic Ocean, by looking at the impact that has been caused by documentaries and the elements that have been used in them to influence people.

Measuring the effectiveness of documentaries on creating a positive impact requires there to be discussion about how documentaries aim to create social change which can be explained through the social change caused after the documentary A Plastic Ocean. Documentaries have been produced to give an opportunity for minorities to speak up about unknown issues and shed light on them as well as to encourage people to take action against these issues and create social movements (Moyano 2011). An important tool used to influence others is to try engaging the viewer’s emotions which are at the forefront of the goals of documentaries. Research conducted to explore the influence of the documentary show Years on the creation of climate change understanding on people in the US. The interviews after they viewed the show revealed that participants who had strong emotional reactions through the way that the story was told or the dramatic imagery accompanying the messages expressed more concern about climate change (Bieniek-Tobasco et al., 2019). The participants described that the depictions of political challenges and their influence on everyday people being shown impacted their emotions. They recalled being shocked by the imagery of the scale of deforestation in Brazil which was shown from the birds-eye-view of a helicopter and the pollution in China and Illinois (Bieniek-Tobasco et al., 2019). “They liked witnessing everyday people engaging with the issue, talking about why it was important, and then taking action.” (Bieniek-Tobasco et al., 2019). The emotional engagement that the viewer needs to have with the documentary can be seen through certain effective documentaries that have proven that exposure to a nature documentary influences pro-environmental behavior. Individuals donated more money to nature-related organizations after watching the nature documentary compared to nature-unrelated organizations (Arendt & Matthes, 2014). A specific example can be given of an experiment done on Ohio State University students who viewed either the fictional motion picture Hotel Rwanda or the PBS documentary Triumph of Evil. The separated groups were then compared with each other in terms of their ability to identify basic facts about the Rwandan genocide which revealed that knowledge gain was higher for the documentary viewing students as they had more emotional and narrative engagement with the documentary Triumph of Evil. This experiment essentially proves that documentaries play an important role in informing and engaging the public as well as suggesting that they have potential to strongly influence public opinion.” (Nisbet & Aufderheide, 2009). People tend to have a stronger will to take action and create a change in society if they are more emotionally involved with the subject which documentaries have made possible. A Plastic Ocean has aimed to create this social change by creating a connectedness to nature with filming techniques that engage viewers’ emotions which has led to changes.

Documentaries can influence minds so effectively because they have the aim of creating an emotional response and specifically A Plastic Ocean uses certain techniques to trigger this emotional response which has led to it being regarded as one of the most impactful documentaries. A Plastic Ocean choses to use this tactic of engaging the viewer’s emotions by using imagery and metaphors showing the extent of the issue as well as its immediacy. The imagery used in the documentary creates a vibe which helps the reader feel closer to the issue as well as understand the extent of the issue which instills a sense of urgency. These are also accompanied by two main multimodal metaphor patterns used in the documentary which portray the harms of plastic and introduce the concept of plastic pollution. The documentary portrays plastic as a necessary evil in today’s world which everyone is guilty of using which creates the metaphor connecting plastic with death and essentially enforcing the idea that “using plastic is using a weapon; throwing away plastic is shooting; every person who uses and throws away plastic, meaning almost everybody in the world, is a murderer.” (Vermenych, 2021). This metaphor is reinforced with the imagery of death throughout the documentary being shown right after discussions about plastic usage. These metaphors are “explicitly rendered” through visual representations of death that create an aura which engages the viewer and shows that they are a part of the problem. This metaphor is used to place the responsibility of plastic pollution and its harmful effects on everyone in the world which encourages people to act against the issue. The documentary emphasizes the role of individuals in this issue by implying the idea that people are murderers of innocent animals and appealing to people's conscience which urges them to minimize the usage of the plastic weapon (Vermenych, 2021). The documentary targets the belief that plastic is somehow disposable by showing how it stays on earth and continues harming animals and nature, showing how humans’ ignorance of this plastic pollution problem continuously harms the world. There are two main conceptual metaphors present in the documentary which are “plastic is an ultimate weapon” and “a man throwing away plastic is a murderer” (Vermenych, 2021). Some specific scenes depicting these two metaphors are when a dying whale who had eaten too much plastic was shown taking its final breaths "It was found to have six square meters of plastic sheeting inside it. (…) Its digestive system was blocked and it died a terrible, painful death." (11:30 - 11:58). The murderer in this situation is understood to be the plastic which enforces the metaphor that plastic is a weapon and the person using that plastic inadvertently has murdered this whale. The sorrowful music accompanying the scene creates a mood which engages the viewer’s emotions and makes them realize the responsibility of using plastic. Throughout the documentary there are several other sea animals shown to be trapped in plastic accompanied with anxiety inducing background beats creating a scary atmosphere which all end with a fade to black screen, symbolizing death (Vermenych, 2021). The responsibility that humans have in this issue are heavily emphasized with shots of plastic used in everyday life being thrown away and turning into pictures of dead animals with plastic inside them including a scene where a plastic ring from a bottle falls into water and appears in the dead bodies of birds. Therefore, connecting the dead animals with the ignorance of people who think that plastic is disposable and essentially showing the people who throw away plastic as murderers. The documentary uses these two main metaphors to convey the message of plastic not being a disposable product which is a serious threat to marine life and to engage the viewer’s emotions to encourage them to take action against plastic pollution.

Showing how documentaries are using certain techniques to influence people to impact society can be done through other impactful documentaries and how they have led to specific changes with the help of these techniques. Examples of certain documentaries that have had impact and has led to changes being made in society are “Blackfish” and “Girl Rising” which have both reached their goal of influencing the target audience. As discussed in prior paragraphs, documentaries are crucial in creating a public space for people to discuss social issues and decide on which action to take against these issues as well as influence change (Whiteman 2003). Some important things to consider in how social change documentaries should be produced is that since they are based on information and emotion intertwined, they should value fairness and balance as well as aim to educate and uplift the viewer (Kemmitt 2007). “Blackfish” could be given as an example of a documentary that has succeeded in achieving change as evidence points to Blackfish playing a critical role in SeaWorld's financial difficulties and the discontinuance of its breeding program (Boissat et al., 2021) Blackfish could achieve this impact by acting as a catalyst for the already existing anti-captivity activism with the use of techniques such as anthropomorphism which creates an emotional bond with the viewer, and plays a role in the audience wanting to support the documentary's activist message against captivity. Blackfish was able to engage the viewers’ emotions as well as educating them which has given people an opportunity to form opinions about something happening in the world that they were not aware of before the documentary and fight against the issue which caused SeaWorld to get backlash and make changes in their programs. Girl Rising is also another documentary that has created impact through engaging with the viewers’ emotions. According to research, three in four viewers experienced emotional engagement and almost half of the viewers said that they engaged in a community-oriented activity as a result of viewing the documentary (Chattoo, 2014). These examples give insight on how documentaries use their emotion engaging techniques to influence people and create a positive impact on society.
In conclusion, the documentary A Plastic Ocean reveals the impact that documentaries can have on society with its usage of techniques that engage the emotions of viewers that end up achieving positive changes in society. Over the years documentaries have become a call to action as well as entertainment, a medium that encourages public participation and democratic practice (Chattoo, 2020). The impact of documentaries can be evaluated by looking at factors such as their production and distribution processes as well as the producers and organizations’ intended potential impact on society. Another important part is how well they are connected to a social movement and the extent of their ability to sustain these spheres of public discourse (WHITEMAN, 2004). Documentaries can mold the opinions of the public and educate people on topics they did not have information on before which can be seen through examples such as Blackfish, Triumph of Evil, Girl Rising as well as A Plastic Ocean. These documentaries have caused changes to happen in society because of their ability to influence peoples’ opinions and emotions with the help of the documentary genre.

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Photo:
https://www.blueoceansociety.org/blog/a-plastic-ocean/