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Entertainment Information
Abstract
Entertainment information references the activity of relaying different forms of information to audiences within specific platforms, in an entertaining manner or as information about the world of entertainment. Author and Internet activist Tristan Louis determined three dimensions of media, each dimension representing a scale of opposites: entertainment versus information; directly purchased versus subsidized information; and mass‐generated versus professional media‐generated information. Entertainment information can also reference entertainment in pedagogical or andragogical content, sensational or fear‐based news reportage, or entertainment reportage and gossip.
With Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, many television users have adopted Video on Demand (VOD) within a few years. What is better known as streaming TV today has no fixed program schedule and contains virtually no political information. Does that affect our concept of what role television plays? In a standardized survey, we compared streaming and linear television users. We found structural differences in viewing motivation and consumption of information. However, we did not find television losing its role as an information medium. We conclude that streaming television is no revolution but suits television into the 21st century.
One theory about the origins of phonological awareness is that young children learn to analyze the component sounds in words with the help of common linguistic routines. To recognize that 2 words rhyme is, therefore, to know something about their component sounds. This theory was investigated in a 15-mo longitudinal study that began when 66 children were age 3 yrs 4 mo. Assessments were made of their knowledge of nursery rhymes (NRs) and their phonological skills, and of parental social class and educational levels. A strong, highly specific relationship was found between knowledge of NRs and the development of phonological skills, which remained significant when differences in IQ and social background were controlled. Measures of NRs and of the detection and production of rhyme and alliteration were related to early reading, but not to early arithmetic skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
With the growing number of entertainment—education (E—E) interventions worldwide, and the extensive evaluation research on their impacts, the time is ripe to explore in—depth the theoretical underpinnings of entertainment—education. This introductory article provides a historical background to this special issue of Communication Theory on entertainment—education, and charts a 5—pronged theoretical agenda for future research on entertainment—education. Theoretical investigations of entertainment—education should pay greater attention to the tremendous variability among entertainment—education interventions and to the various resistances to entertainment—education interventions. E—E theorizing will also benefit from close investigations of the rhetorical, play, and affective aspects of E—E. Further, E—E “effects” research should consider employing a broader understanding of individual, group, and social—level changes and be more receptive to methodological pluralism and measurement ingenuity.
In the United States, entertainment-education (E-E) initiatives in primetime television that provide public health information are at risk for diminished impact due to the media-saturated environment in which they must compete. One strategy to overcome this limitation is to use multiple primetime TV shows to reinforce similar health messages in multiple storylines. The current study explores such an approach by evaluating the impact of two separate breast cancer genetics storylines featured on two different TV programs as the result of outreach to writers and producers. These storylines aired within approximately 3 weeks of each other on the popular medical dramas, ER (NBC) and Grey's Anatomy (ABC), and included information about the BRCA1 breast cancer gene mutation and the risks it poses to women who test positive for it. The evaluation used data collected from a panel sample of 599 female survey respondents at three points in time. Results show that while the individual storylines had a modest impact on viewers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to breast cancer, combined exposure seemed to be most effective at changing outcomes. Implications of our findings for future E-E interventions and evaluations are discussed.
Contents: Preface. Part I: History and Theory. A. Singhal, E.M. Rogers, The Status of Entertainment-Education Worldwide. D. Poindexter, A History of Entertainment-Education, 1958-2000. P.T. Poitrow, E. de Fossard, Entertainment-Education as a Public Health Intervention. M. Sabido, The Origins of Entertainment-Education. A. Bandura, Social Cognitive Theory for Personal and Social Change by Enabling Media. W.J. Brown, B.P. Fraser, Celebrity Identification in Entertainment-Education. S. Sood, T. Menard, K. Witte, The Theory Behind Entertainment-Education. Part II: Research and Implementation. S. Usdin, A. Singhal, T. Shongwe, S. Goldstein, A. Shabalala, No Short Cuts in Entertainment-Education: Designing Soul City Step-by-Step. W.N. Ryerson, N. Teffera, Organizing a Comprehensive National Plan for Entertainment-Education in Ethiopia. B.S. Greenberg, C.T. Salmon, D. Patel, V. Beck, G. Cole, Evolution of an E-E Research Agenda. V. Beck, Working With Daytime and Prime-Time Television Shows in the United States to Promote Health. M. Bouman, Entertainment-Education Television Drama in the Netherlands. M.J. Cody, S. Fernandes, H. Wilkin, Entertainment-Education Programs of the BBC and BBC World Service Trust. A.C. La Pastina, D.S. Patel, M. Schiavo, Social Merchandizing in Brazilian Telenovelas. E.M. Rogers, Delivering Entertainment-Education Health Messages Through the Internet to Hard-to-Reach U.S. Audiences in the Southwest. Part III: Entertainment-Education Interventions and Their Outcomes. R.A. Abdulla, Entertainment-Education in the Middle East: Lessons From the Egyptian Oral Rehydration Campaign. Y. Yaser, The Turkish Family Health and Planning Foundation's Entertainment-Education Campaign. N. McKee, M. Aghi, R. Carnegie, N. Shahzadi, Cartoons and Comic Books for Changing Social Norms: Meena, the South Asian Girl. A. Singhal, D. Sharma, M.J. Papa, K. Witte, Air Cover and Ground Mobilization: Integrating Entertainment-Education Broadcasts With Community Listening and Service Delivery in India. A. Singhal, Entertainment-Education Through Participatory Theater: Freirean Strategies for Empowering the Oppressed. T. Tufte, Soap Operas and Sense-Making: Mediations and Audience Ethnography. J.D. Storey, T.L. Jacobson, Entertainment-Education and Participation: Applying Habermas to a Population Program in Nepal. Epilogue.
Contemporary international television offers a rich site for the investigation of matters concerning cultural adaptation. Over the past 20 years, a formalized, organized system has developed whereby program production knowledge can be borrowed from place to place for the re-creation of a television program in another territory. The TV program format is a kind of template or recipe whereby particular industry knowledges are packaged to facilitate this process of remaking. This article provides a trade background to the development of the TV format industry. It links the TV format's emergence to the practice of franchising, with its attendant cultural need to customize the format to suit local audience taste and outlook in a particular territory. This process of localization is examined on three levels using a model derived from translation theory. The article finds that the localization which occurs in such processes primarily involves the development of content that is nationally unexceptional through which audiences in a national territory can be addressed as a collective ‘we’. Even beyond this detail, format adaptation raises crucial issues concerning globalization and nationalization, and these are addressed in the final part of the analysis.
The three dimensions of media
- T Louis
Entertainment vs. information [Blog post
- T Louis
If it bleeds, it leads: Understanding fear‐based media
- Serani D.
Mass information or mass entertainment
- Gallup G.
Subsidized vs. directly purchased media
- T Louis