Encoded Exposure and Social Norms in Entertainment-Education |
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| Authors: | Amy Henderson Riley Suruchi Sood Paramita Dasgupta Mazumdar Narendra Nath Choudary Alka Malhotra Naysan Sahba |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Community Health and Prevention, School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA;2. CMS Communication (Centre for Media Studies), Saket Community Centre, New Delhi, India;3. Polio Communication Section, UNICEF, Abuja, Nigeria;4. UNICEF India Country Office, New Delhi, India;5. Division of Communications and Public Information, United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya |
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| Abstract: | Entertainment-education is an effective health communication strategy that combines or embeds educational messages into entertainment programs to bring about social and behavior change. For years, scholars have considered how entertainment-education works. Some contemporary theories posit that entertainment-education does not engender behavior change directly but does so through mediating variables. This study adds to the literature on this topic by exploring the direct relationship between exposure and social norms instead of their relationship through behavior as a mediator. Novel to this study is the use of encoded exposure, a continuous and recognition-based measure of exposure that includes ever watching, recall, involvement, and dose in its operationalization. Using cross-sectional data from Kyunki … Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai, an entertainment-education program in India, this exploratory analysis indicates a positive and significant relationship between encoded exposure and social norms. How can this finding be applied to future programs? Questions remain, and replication is needed, but if it is not essential to go through behavior in order to change social norms, then implications emerge for the theory and practice of entertainment-education. |
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