Mobilizing for Change

Chapter 5 presents an extended case analysis of the 2013 independent documentary film, Blackfish. Positioning Blackfish within the context of contemporary networked activism offers a lens to consider how a nonfiction story can capture public attention and fuel grassroots public engagement. As this chapter illuminates, social change is aided by documentary storytelling through a framework that includes key elements: narrative persuasion and the role of emotion, amplified community from online and offline activism, cultivated media narrative, strategic layered distribution, and a call to action embedded in the storytelling. While this schema is not the only way to contemplate social change with documentary storytelling at the fore, analysis of Blackfish as a cultural phenomenon illuminates a central concept: The emotional lens of an investigative documentary, combined with planned and organic public engagement and activism, sparked news coverage and shaped a consistent media narrative through every distribution stop in the film’s life cycle.