The Documentary Effect
How to create a false sense of confidence in something we oftentimes know nothing about
Documentaries should come with a warning:
“We have designed this documentary to be as persuasive as possible. When you finish this there will be a profound change in what you believe to be true”.
This is the intended result of the Documentary Effect.
Upon hearing of this from Scott Adams, I realised I had been the victim of this many times over. Documentaries can put us in a cognitively vulnerable state, and like lambs to slaughter, we can be misled about what is true.
So what is it?
The Documentary Effect is what happens after watching a one-sided documentary (or book, article, podcast, etc). We get a comforting feeling of being informed about the subject, but this feeling is often a misplaced one and we may end up less informed than we were before - more on this later.
The Documentary Effect puts us into a state of overconfidence. Experts are testifying, producing indisputable facts left and right with premises leading to undeniable conclusions and it’s hard to imagine they could be wrong. It’s all too convincing.
It’s like that by design.
Considering documentaries are limited by time along with the vast depth of most subjects, it’s inevitable information is going to be omitted. If we’re unfamiliar with the topic we don’t know what is left out - it’s up to the creators to decide.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias which leads people with a low ability at a task to overestimate how much they think they know. As seen from the graph below, no matter your actual performance or knowledge, your confidence in yourself will always be high.
The problem is, you can’t usually tell where on the graph you stand.
This overconfidence is your downfall.
Less Informed
How can someone end up being less informed after watching a documentary that’s supposed to inform them? Because hearing one side of an argument isn’t being informed. Throughout the documentary, you’ll gradually be guided towards a conclusion the creators intended rather than the conclusion you would have come to of your own volition.
If you watch a pro-vegan documentary, their aim is to turn you vegan. If you watch a climate change denial documentary, you’ll walk away with doubts about the climate. Why would they jeopardise their goal by showing strong arguments which disagree with them? The evidence and arguments they show will only be ones that bolster their point of view.
However, in saying that, you may have come across documentaries that give arguments against what they're trying to convince you of. They do this to build credibility. They’ll show an assertion from the other side, but this is usually followed up by why those assertions are wrong. They won’t show you the good objections, only ones they can make look foolish. As a layman on a foreign topic, it’s difficult to know a good or bad argument, let alone the facts. They are able to present a case for each side and we as the viewers have no way of knowing the strength of each of those arguments.
It takes mental effort to undo a belief in an initial set of ‘facts’. After hearing and accepting them, one becomes anchored to them as truth, anything that contradicts these facts is viewed as suspect and makes it harder for us to change our minds.
But, with your newfound knowledge of the Documentary Effect, you can start to view documentaries you see through the lens of scepticism.
My Examples
People who make documentaries are trained in visual persuasion and communication. There should be no shame in admitting when we’ve been fooled, in fact, they wouldn’t be good documentaries if they didn’t convince us.
KARI LAKE
Kari Lake was running for governor of Arizona in 2022 and lost. I heard her on a podcast after the results came through talking about how the election was stolen from her. The examples she gave were very convincing, marrying that with her superb communication skills - of course I found her compelling. However, when she took it to the courts her case got shut down. Now, this is either proof the whole system is rigged against her, or her case wasn’t as strong as she presented it.
Listening to her I couldn’t imagine how she could be wrong. But that’s all there is to it, I couldn’t imagine it. Not being able to imagine something does not mean it doesn’t exist, it means I lack the imagination. What happened was I heard one side of the argument with no pushback and became convinced. If I had heard the other side, I would have been more doubtful.
LEAVING NEVERLAND
"Leaving Neverland" is a documentary that aired in 2019, focusing on the allegations of sexual abuse made by two individuals against Michael Jackson.
I watched this recently to test the Documentary Effect. Despite my predisposition to believe in Michael’s innocence, I couldn’t help but find their testimonies somewhat convincing - which was the point. Afterwards, I watched a few debunks of this documentary - of which there are plenty - and I walked away thinking Leaving Neverland was a lie from the beginning.
Again, that’s the point.
I personally don’t think the Leaving Neverland claims are true. It does its best to sell me on it. I’m simply not interested in buying.
If I were super invested in Michael Jackson and these claims I would continue to research this, but honestly, I don’t care too much about it and don’t have the time. This is one of the reasons people turn to documentaries in the first place. There’s so much information out there we simply don’t have the time to dive into subjects ourselves and we rely on others to tell us what’s true. This makes us the perfect prey.
The waiters who serve us this readily packaged meal of information have assured us this is all we need, meanwhile, the chefs in the background are substituting ingredients and leaving out critical components while we’re too busy looking at the next item on the menu to notice.
Documentaries are not a reliable way to tell us what’s true. Everyone is swimming in their own biases, it’s become difficult to know who to trust. It’s not like news organisations are motivated to keep us properly informed, either.
If not, what is reliable?
This idea that we can watch a documentary, or listen to a podcast and walk away with a deep and nuanced understanding of the topic is foolish. We walk away feeling informed about all things on a topic and more often than not, rarely knowing the good arguments of the other side. We cognitively dig ourselves into positions based on a one-sided documentary.
What about researching how the documentary could be wrong, we’ll be closer to the truth then, right? This is better, but the debunks aren’t necessarily accurate either, you could suffer from the Documentary Effect, just from the debunk’s perspective. You cannot know what’s true by viewing something that is designed to convince you of one side. You may come into contact with the truth, but this would be through chance, not through reason.
You have to keep digging.
I recommend finding two people who disagree with each other and can go on a long-form talk show or podcast. You can hear both sides, and each can push back on what they believe to be falsehoods. It’s important there is no arbitrary time limit.
Such as this:
Debates on television (such as between presidential candidates) these days are entirely based on getting sound bites and viral clips. That’s how you get popular, by getting a good zinger off. Not by advancing the conversation.
So just remember if a friend comes to you (maybe with a pair of crazy eyes) about how you’ve just got to watch this documentary, they’re probably suffering from the Documentary Effect. Feel free to watch the documentary, but know most likely, you are going to walk away with the exact point of view that the creators wanted you to have.
Because that’s the point of the documentary.