Entertainment-Education
Authors: Brown William J. 
Published: June 2017

The use of entertainment as a strategy for social change is a practice that dates back to the beginnings of organized societies. Life-saving information, shared values and beliefs, and socially acceptable practices have been passed down from generation to generation through the art of storytelling, employing a sophisticated skill for integrating popular entertainment with learning. In the highly mediated cultures of the 21st century, media and arts’ practitioners actively use many forms of entertainment to educate their audiences. By the late 20th century, the strategic use of entertainment for social influence and educational purposes was commonly referred to as prosocial entertainment, entertainment with added value, pro-development entertainment, edutainment, infotainment, and enter-educate drama, among other terms. In 1999, several scholars studying the strategic use of entertainment for education and social change settled on the term the entertainment-education communication strategy, which is now a common description employed by communication scholars. Entertainment-education is defined as a communication strategy that intentionally seeks to reinforce or change attitudes, values, beliefs, or social practices by integrating educational content into entertainment productions. There are five essential elements to the entertainment-education communication strategy. First, it involves using entertainment for the purpose of educating or persuading an audience. All kinds of entertainment provide information and are influential. Entertainment-education, however, must be purposeful, so that the entertainment is created with a predetermined educational or persuasive effect in mind. Second, entertainment-education is theoretically grounded. The strategic nature of entertainment-education is based in communication theories or theories in closely related disciplines of study such as social psychology, sociology, and political science. The study of human communication is commonly considered an academic field of study that is multidisciplinary, drawing from many theoretical traditions. Thus the entertainment-education communication strategy draws from many different kinds of theories. Third, entertainment-education seeks to produce high-quality entertainment through which audiences learn. It requires the blending of entertainment values with educational content so that audiences learn while they are being entertained. Entertainment-education operates through all media and the arts, including film, theater, music, folk art, street drama, television programs, radio programs, live performances, and sports events. Whatever can be considered entertaining can also be educational, and thus the entertainment-education communication strategy encompasses all media, arts, and mediated events during which communication takes place. Fourth, entertainment-education is a research-based communication strategy. It involves formative research with potential audiences before a media or arts product or performance is created, and it involves summative research to measure the effects of entertainment-education messages on their intended audiences. Finally, entertainment-education requires collaboration between media practitioners and change agents such as health and development professionals and media scholars who create educational and social change goals. This collaboration can take on many forms but commonly involves a negotiation between creative artists and public officials or educators.