The effect of stories on policy-relevant outcomes
Creators: name: Walsh, James
name: Vogt, Sonja
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Communication
subject: Public Policy
subject: Health Psychology
subject: Social Psychology
subject: Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
subject: Behavioral Economics
subject: Health Communication
subject: Economics
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Social Policy
subject: behavioural change
subject: communication for development
subject: communications campaigns
subject: edutainment
subject: entertainment education
subject: information campaigns
subject: media campaigns
subject: Narratives
subject: public service announcement
subject: radio dramas
subject: stories

description: Background: Social scientists have become increasingly interested in the effect of stories on policy-relevant outcomes. Under the conceptual umbrella of “entertainment education” or “edutainment,” stories have been created to encourage people to adopt a wide range of behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes. However, only a small fraction of media is produced with express policy goals in mind. Social scientists have also investigated the behavioural effects of stories that were never the direct goal of the media and only discovered retrospectively, through analysis by social scientists. As a result, studies vary widely not only in the theoretical approach and empirical methods they use, but also with regard to the disciplinary background of the scholars producing the research. Objective: The present study aims to assess the extent of research that has been conducted on the effect of stories on policy-relevant outcomes. It will provide systematic evidence on the administrative, geographic, and policy characteristics of the studies, on dimensions of the interventions, and on empirical approaches used to test effects. Design: A scoping review of the effect of stories on policy-relevant outcomes will be conducted. Following a review of potentially relevant fields, we will search the following databases: PubMeD, Web of Science, Embase, Proquest Social Science Premium Collection, Scopus, EconLit, PsycINFO, Education Abstracts, and Business Source Complete. This will be combined with literature identified through a grey literature search, a snowballing exercise, and a consultation with experts. We will select and review publications in which the primary goal of the study is to empirically assess whether or how stories affect policy-relevant outcomes. In selecting studies, we will conform to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines and extract data using a tool we created for the purposes of the study. Discussion: Understanding what research has been conducted on the effect of stories on policy-relevant outcomes is essential to developing a systematic understanding of how it affects social outcomes and its potential as a policy instrument. Yet, because the research is spread across multiple disciplines, this is difficult for any one researcher to do. We aim to address this challenge in this paper.