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Fahrenheit 9/11

Documentary films, such as Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 have grown in popularity enormously in recent years and there are many reasons for this. Reality television has topped the charts as one of the most successful genres on television. Terrorism has become a major issue to the citizens of Western civilizations since the World Trade Towers were attacked and people are eager to hear information about terrorism. The media has played a huge part in broadcasting the latest news in regards to terrorism but a lot of this is passed by the government before being broadcasted. As a result documentaries have picked up as they are a voice from the general public in a sense and are inexpensive in comparison to feature films, but also relay their information through the use of narrative techniques.
Reality television has been introduced in recent years and has been highly successful. It has gone on to dominate prime time television with shows like Big Brother, Australian Idol, Survivor, X Factor and Amazing Race. The viewing audiences are able to engage with the characters, who in this case are real people and experience real life drama. The characters, the group dynamics and the conflicts have combined to provide compelling viewing. From this saturation of reality television, audiences have become more accepting of documentary films and their recent success can be linked to the demand from viewing audiences to see and hear real people and real stories. They have also become accustomed to the structure and the different ways that reality can be presented to them. Documentaries have gone from being purely for informative purposes with specialized target audiences to mainstream entertainment as big blockbusters in cinemas. Reality television has played a main part in helping documentaries make this transition to the big screen.
Documentary films popularity is due in part to the fact that they have addressed relevant issues of modern day society such as terrorism,...