Theoretic Agenda of Entertainment-Education

In their 2002 article on E-E, Singhal and Rogers propose that future theoretical investigations into E-E should address 5 items. Two of the 5 areas on the E-E "theoretic agenda" are:

• "Agenda #1: Theoretical investigations of entertainment-education should pay greater attention to the tremendous variability among E-E interventions."
• "Agenda #3: E-E theorizing will benefit from close investigation of the rhetorical, play, and affective aspects of E-E."

(Singhal & Rogers, 2002 , p. 120).

Of the 5 items called for, these 2 are what, in part, drive the research shared in this blog. When looking at the "tremendous variability" of E-E, we should consider looking at the fact that E-E is not new. Playwrights and script writers have long attempted to educate their audience while entertaining them. To aid us in designing the more formal type of E-E programs, what can we learn from specifically from TV and film script writers? How do they attempt to persuade the audience? And this brings us to agenda item #3. Can TV programs and films be analyzed as rhetorical artifacts/texts that attempt to persuade (educate) an audience about particular social issues? Well, yes! That's what this line of research is about.