Entertainment-Education A Critical Assessment of the History and Development Thomas Tufte & Rafael Obregon Ørecomm Global Launch Panel PCR Section, IAMCR World Congress Stockholm, 22 July 2008

Introduction Theory: Re-considering the field of EE from a participatory perspective and beyond Practice: One of the most innovative and used comm strategies in ComDev in the past 2 decades – more than 200 experiences Evaluation: Consolidated strategy, but what do the evaluations say about outputs and results?

Claim No 1 While EE emerged at the time as a fresh contribution to the field of development and health communication, it has failed to incorporate new theoretical perspectives that address the underlying causes on poverty, underdevelopment, and health inequities.

Claim No 2 The application and practice of EE remains heavily driven by perspectives focused on creating change at individual level, the result of the shortsighted agendas of international donors and funding agencies

Claim No 3 Evaluation of EE interventions have failed to take into account richer culture-driven communication perspectives that could help examine how EE content serves as a platform for people to make sense of their own realities, create and circulate meanings, and act upon to transform their environments.

Defining EE (1) “the process of purposely designing and implementing a media message to both entertain and educate, in order to increase audience members’ knowledge about an issue, create favorable attitudes, shift social norms, and change the overt behavior of individuals and communities” (Singhal and Rogers 2004)

Defining EE (2) Entertainment-Education is the use of entertainment as a communicative practice crafted to strategically communicate about development issues in a manner and with a purpose that can range from the more narrowly defined social marketing of individual behaviours to the liberating and citizen-driven articulation of social change agendas (Tufte 2005).

The Known Story of EE (1934-2004) Popeye, 1930ies, US The Archers, 1950ies, UK Simplesmente Maria, 1960ies, Peru Sabido soap operas, 1970ies Mexico Pro-development soap operas… 1990ies proliferation of the strategy: TfD, concerts, radio dramas, computer games, etc

Other stories of EE Forum theatre – participatory theatre (Augusto Boal) Social Critique from ’within’ established media (Dias Gomes in Rede Globo) Social movements’ use of EE – theatre, musik, film… Challenge – disconnect between these experiences and the institutionally driven EE initiatives

Critiques of EE practice A critique of the narrow focus on BCC – Waisbord (2001) Other critiques: non-participatory, top-down, donor-driven, unsustainable, instrumental, limited outcomes Diffusion and participation: a false dichotomy – Morris (2003)

EE Scholarship Expanding EE and Social Change revisited EE from a Freireian perspective EE and the Public Sphere Sense-making and multiple mediations

Theoretical Challenges (1) Dialogic Communication and liberating pedagogy Action-reflection-action Naming the world Participatory approaches to social change Culture as Circulation of meaning Audience Reception Analysis and Sense–Making processes Telenovelas, storytelling – understanding potential of soap operas Methodological challenges to capture these processes

Theoretical Challenges (2) Organization and Systems Perspectives Organizing for Social Change Complexity theory Governance and Social Change From Service Provision to Advocacy Post–Development * Issues of voice, questioning the dominant discourse of development Radical democracy Framework on democracy and citizenship (Chantal Mouffe – 1993/2005)

Conclusion EE keeps growing as a practice of ComDev and as a scholarly theme Need to move beyond ’just’ understanding development interventions, dig deeper Still underexplored fields on learning processes, conceptualizing entertainment, analysing social change processes