The advertising industry has known for a long time that education (changing behaviour) and entertainment can be combined into a powerful propaganda tool. This is education, not through repetition, but through intensity of experience – not by rote but by rite.
Edutainment is a combination of the concepts of education and entertainment. It refers to attempts to create media that makes education more attractive, fun, emotionally satisfying, relevant and motivating. Who said education has to be boring?
Think of the controversial television series Yizo Yizo. One of the shows directors, Tebogo Mahlatsi said, “Yizo Yizo was initiated by the department of education after their own research about conditions in black schools – unmotivated teachers, lack of leadership, drugs and violence … They wanted a drama series set in a black school that could highlight these issues. We proposed a narrative where you start with a school in crisis and then you model very carefully how that school can get itself out of trouble by getting rid of elements like gangsterism, drugs and violence and then rebuilding itself. We wanted to create a show that could address these things and hopefully generate debate … parents wanted it banned fro its portrayal of violence in the schools. But young people identified with it … [parents] didn’t want to acknowledge that most of the things the show was dealing with were happening. If they admitted it, then it meant they failed their children as parents, but the truth was, in our research, most parents did not attend meetings in schools, they were not talking to their kids, and they didn’t know what their children were up to. Denial was at the core of it.”
A research project in the UK discovered that most young people were learning more from soap operas on TV than they were from educational programmes designed specifically for them. Why do you think this was? What do you think are the negative and positive aspects of learning life lessons from soap operas?
One of the reasons suggested was that young people can choose which characters to identify with when they watch soap operas. This gives them the opportunity to respond creatively rather than just accept whatever the educational programme is telling them. Instead of one educational message that is presented as true, soap operas represent many voices. The voices are allowed to disagree with each other, and young people can make comparisons. Characters also struggle with choices, making mistakes – all things that are more realistic than ‘squeaky-clean’ education programmes. Soap operas are also more open ended. They don’t resolve into neat endings like educational messages do. As with a lot of African storytelling, soap operas end in ways that invite the audience to imagine the next event or outcome.
Views: 46