Why Use Entertainment- Education?

Entertainment-education has a long history. For thousands of years, entertaining stories have passed on wisdom and values from generation to generation. Modern E-E dates from the 1940s and 1950s, when radio dramas both informed and entertained farmers and their families: TheLawsons in Australia and The Archers in the United Kingdom motivated people to adopt agricultural innovations (96). To improve public health, E-E has encouraged people to exercise, eat more fruits and vegetables, and stop smoking (15, 20, 37), as well as to adopt family planning and avoid HIV infection. Miguel Sabido developed one of the first dramas with a family planning theme (see Many E-E dramas portray positive, negative, and transitional role models).

E-E uses various forms of entertainment. Dramas on radio and TV, animated cartoons, popular songs, street theater, and other formats can educate and motivate as they entertain (96). In E-E there is no clear dividing line between entertainment and education (26). The two should be seamlessly woven together.

As a part of family planning/reproductive health programs, E-E can help program managers meet objectives. E-E can increase demand for services, motivate people to protect their health, and demonstrate to providers how to improve care. E-E can help meet these objectives in several ways:

Two popular Jordanian singers, Ahmad Rami (left) and Qamar Badwan, perform the theme song at the launch of the Jordan youth campaign. The campaign encouraged young people to discuss family planning and reproductive health with their parents and, when married, with their spouses. © 2001 Kevork Toranian, Courtesy of Photoshare

• By showing behavior rather than just describing it. Observing others is one way that people learn and adopt a new behavior (see Theories Link Entertainment-Education and Motivation). For example, a TV drama in Bangladesh, Shabuj Chhaya, showed couples discussing family planning and visiting a clinic for antenatal care (8, 30). A radio drama in Nepal for health care providers, Service Brings Reward, provided information about family planning and demonstrated good counseling skills (47).

• By addressing norms and beliefs that are deeply rooted in a society. Certain issues, such as dowry or early marriage, may be too sensitive to address in lectures. For example, in South Asia animated cartoons and comic books from the Meena Initiative portray the dangers of early marriage and early pregnancy and the advantages of allowing girls to finish school (114).

• By attracting large audiences with an entertaining format. For example, the estimated audience for Soul City IV, a 1999 E-E campaign in South Africa to prevent domestic violence, was 16 million (115).

• By attracting audiences that are hard to reach. Young people might not come to a lecture, but they enjoy a music video. For example, in 1986 an estimated 150 million people watched the launch of the Mexican music video “Cuando Estemos Juntos” (When We Are Together), which encouraged sexual responsibility (52). In isolated villages with few televisions or radios, people gather around a single receiver to watch or listen to each new episode of a serial drama (46, 62, 93, 119).

• By offering formats to suit the scale and goals of most programs. E-E can be done on a small scale, such as puppet shows or street theater. It also can be done on a large scale—for example, through national broadcasts of radio and TV dramas or widespread distribution of photonovelas and comic books.

• By costing little per person influenced via the mass media. Radio or TV dramas or songs can be expensive to produce, but with large audiences the cost per person motivated to change behavior can be a few dollars (40, 51, 74, 84).

Despite the reach and influence of E-E on demand for services and the quality of care, E-E programs by themselves cannot make up for all gaps in health care (67). To increase use of family planning and reproductive health services, E-E programs need to be matched with efforts to expand services and train and equip providers.