Entertainment- Education and The Global African Experience Conference
(April 15-17, 2004). Athens, Ohio University.

Entertainment-Education (EE) is a strategic communication intervention that uses popular entertainment vehicles to deliver pro-social, educational messages. For the past two decades the strategy has attracted much attention among strategic communicators in the international donor community. The strategy has been used extensively in the developing world to address issues as varied as domestic violence, HIV/AIDS prevention, and the rights of the girl child. It has also supported initiatives in environmental education, peace and conflict resolution, tourism, and the diffusion of agricultural innovations.

A study conducted in 2000 by researchers at Ohio University revealed that a significant number of entertainment-education interventions funded by the international community were being executed in global Africa–continental Africa and its diaspora in the Americas. The majority of these interventions appeared to be radio and television soap operas. Other interventions included music videos, popular music, and rock concerts. This emphasis could suggest that other forms of entertainment-interventions might be ineffective. Such a conclusion cannot be drawn, however, as there is limited evidence that the strategic communicators affiliated with the donor community have explored indigenous entertainment vehicles that could be used to complement and extend the entertainment-education strategy.

Global Africa faces many pressing social, economic, and political problems, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic and political turmoil. It is imperative that the international community spend some time identifying those indigenous entertainment-education strategies that could complement and extend interventions aimed at improving the quality of human life in global Africa.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Hollywood and Health Initiative recently organized a conference to develop a research agenda related to the use of entertainment-education for African American and Hispanic communities in the United States. It is clear that African Americans and Hispanics consume and interpret mass media products in ways that are different from white audiences. Many of the assumptions underlying mainstream program production in the United States are exported by the mass media oriented entertainment-education interventions being delivered in Global Africa. The unintended consequences of this reality require examination.

Papers Presented