Saturday, January 2, 2010

What is Popular Entertainment Education?

Entertainment-education has been traditionally defined as "the process of purposely designing and implementing a media message both to entertain and educate" about health and social issues. Traditional E-E is designed by communication researchers and is based on communication theory. Example: Communication researchers writing, producing and evaluating a radio soap opera designed to encourage family planning in Tanzania.

Popular entertainment-education is defined here as the process used by TV and film script writers to not only entertain, but to educate and move an audience regarding particular health and social issues (e.g., breast cancer, AIDS/HIV). The central social issue explored in this research blog is prejudice/race relations. What is the process that script writers have used to educate audiences about prejudice? This research blog attempts to answer that particular question.






1 comment:

  1. I love the overall concept of "Popular Entertainment Education", but the stated definition seems a little narrow. Limiting the definition to health related criteria, though important, does not fully cover the possibility of what could fully be learned from popular entertainment/media. Couldn't popular entertainment also educate in such areas as history, the arts, sciences, and even philosophy?

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