Independent Lens Releases Report Measuring Social Justice Impact of Watching Docs (Exclusive)
In the summer of 2019, the weekly PBS documentary series Independent Lens (from San Francisco-based nonprofit ITVS) began developing Stories for Justice, a multi-year initiative to present criminal justice-focused docs on public television. By the end of the first season last summer, Stories for Justice included five features, 16 shorts and one eight-part series for a combined 19 hours of content.
Independent Lens didn’t just produce and distribute the docs; it also surveyed viewers in order to measure the educational and activation impact of the content on its audience. Using DocSCALE, a feedback platform on mobile that ITVS introduced in February 2021, Independent Lens surveyed nearly 1,800 viewers, 70 percent of whom do not work in the legal system or for legal reform. (In total, the series reported that Stories for Justice reached 27.3 million viewers.)
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Sixty percent of viewers characterized the amount of knowledge they gained from watching Stories for Justice as “a lot” or “a great deal,” and nearly half of all respondents (45 percent) rated themselves as “extremely” likely to discuss with others the subjects raised in the docs, which included cash bail, policing and the root causes of mass incarceration.
The report also surveyed viewers’ specific takeaways for individual films, including:
Belly of the Beast, which revealed forced sterilization in women’s prisons, particularly targeting Black and Latina people. Independent Lens noted that both public awareness and media coverage of these abuses increased after the film’s television premiere in November 2020, and in July 2021 California passed a bill to provide $7.5 million in reparations to as many as 600 survivors. Public media made it possible for people who are or have been incarcerated to view Belly of the Beast, said producer Angela Tucker. Added previously incarcerated activist Kelli Dillon, who participated in the film, “To watch this film and see these are actual things that are happening, I myself have been coercively sterilized or lied to, it has opened up so much.”
Philly D.A., an eight-episode deep dive into lived experience inside the Philadelphia criminal justice system, including cash bail, police unions, sentencing and drug laws, the juvenile justice system, parole and probation. Nearly half (46 percent) of viewers who reported not knowing who their local prosecutor was visited the prosecutors’ directory provided by Independent Lens after watching the series, and viewers who attended a screening event that included talkbacks with local prosecutors were even more likely to do so. “The local D.A. office needs feedback [on] their decisions that affect their community,” said one viewer (a male of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander descent, age 50 to 64).
Down a Dark Stairwell, which recounts the 2014 killing of Akai Gurley, a Black man shot in his apartment building, and the subsequent trial of Chinese American police officer Peter Liang, who was convicted of manslaughter, later reduced to criminally negligent homicide. The case illuminated the experiences of two different marginalized populations colliding within the criminal justice system. “My hope is that the film helps to create a space for new conversations about race, justice and coalition building, and challenges audiences to question who really benefits when legacies of solidarity are disrupted,” director Ursula Liang said in a statement. Seventy-two percent of respondents said they planned to actively seek out ways to partner and ally with different groups after watching the film, including one male viewer aged 50 to 64 of Asian and white descent, who said he planned to “explore opportunities for truth and reconciliation between ethnic groups who have previously been in conflict.”
“Independent documentary filmmakers invest years to tell stories that help shape our communities,” Independent Lens executive producer Lois Vossen said in a statement. “Stories for Justice focuses our attention on the complexities of the criminal justice system and invites Americans to learn more about and participate in solutions to reduce the harms it causes.”
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