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.

Definitions of Popular

"1: of or relating to the general public2: suitable to the majority: as a: adapted to or indicative of the understanding and taste of the majority b: suited to the means of the majority : inexpensive 3: frequently encountered or widely accepted 4: commonly liked or approved"(Merriam-Webster.com)

popular. (2008). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved December 30, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/popular

Definition of Popular Culture

"Popular culture refers to those systems or artifacts that most people share and that most people know about. For those who identify with playing for a symphony orchestra, there is an interrelated ... But television is an immensely rich world of popular culture, as nearly everyone watches television and , even if not everyone sees the same shows, they are likely to know in general about the shows that they do not see. In speaking of popular culture, then, we are concerned with things, like television, that are part of the everyday experience of most people."
(Brummett, 1994, p.21).

TV shows = artifacts/texts

This study looks at rhetorical messages in TV shows that promote anti-prejudice practices.
Because this study looks at the rhetorical messages in popular culture (TV specifically), then I refer to the type of entertainment education research that I'm doing as popular entertainment education.

Entertainment Education: Definitions

Entertainment Education is "the process of purposely designing and implementing a media message both to entertain and educate" (Singhal & Rogers, 1999, p. 9).

Entertainment education is "the intentional placement of educational content in entertainment messages" (Singhal & Rogers, 2002, p. 117).

"Entertainment-education (E-E) is the process of purposely designing and implementing a media message to both entertain and educate, in order to increase audience members’ knowledge about an educational issue, create favorable attitudes, shift social norms, and change overt behavior (Singhal & Rogers, 1999; Singhal & Rogers, 2002)" (Singhal, Cody, Rogers & Sabido, 2003, p. 5).