ABSTRACT
Scholars have long defi ned documentary fi lm as inherently rhetorical (see Bruzzi, Finnegan, Foss, Nichols, Plantinga, and Winston). Although they are often labeled “nonfi ction” fi lms, documentaries are a hybrid of journalism, ethnography, and art, “designed to portray reality artistically for the purposes of infl uencing public thought” (Foss 51). Moreover, documentaries are rhetorical vehicles, conveying sophisticated, well-crafted messages that are free from the disciplinary constraints of scientifi c objectivity and journalistic balance. Indeed, they seek to infl uence thought and manifest action-what rhetoricians know as agency-through scripted narration; interviews with carefully selected experts, scientists, and citizens; decontextualized and reordered sound bites; thoughtfully sequenced visual images; and the use of music and sounds. Together these elements provide “multiple forces that interact to produce meaning” in which “images become inventional resources for public argument” (Finnegan, 39, 40).
