4/24/97 Contact: For more information contact Dwight Woodward, Ohio University News Services, 614/593-1886; e-mail: dwoodward1@ohiou.edu. At Johns Hopkins University, contact Patrick Coleman, 410/659-6300; e-mail: plc%@mcimail.com.
ATHENS, Ohio -- Soap opera characters may be young and restless in China and India, but they also model positive behavior such as staying away from drugs and engaging in safe sexual practices. The use of soap operas to encourage healthy behavior and practices is part of a burgeoning field in developing countries called enter-education, which incorporates socially responsible messages into entertainment programming.
Arvind Singhal, an associate professor of interpersonal communication at Ohio University, specializes in the use of enter-education in Indian and Chinese radio and television entertainment programs.
Singhal and hundreds of other researchers, Hollywood producers, advertising executives and entertainment-education professionals from around the world will discuss the concept at the Second International Conference on Entertainment-Education and Social Change May 7-10 at Ohio University in Athens.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Communication Programs at Johns Hopkins University (JHU/CCP) and Ohio University's Communication and Development Studies Program, the conference will examine media programming and other forms of entertainment that have proven successful in preventing AIDS, drug use and unwanted pregnancies in developed and developing countries.
While their counterparts in developing countries have been doing it for years, U.S. television and motion picture producers are starting to add examples of positive social behavior to their top-rated programs and films.
Could this be the beginning of a trend?
Embracing the enter-education concept, a recent episode of Fox's "Beverly Hills 90210" depicts Steve, an occasional drug user who kicks his habit after another character dies of a heroin overdose. At the end of the program, actor Ian Zierlin, who plays Steve, appears in a public service announcement for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America .
"We hope U.S. producers and writers are starting to follow their counterparts in developing countries who have successfully used the enter-education concept," said Phyllis Tilson Piotrow, director of the JHU/CCP.
The center, with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, has helped its partners in some 65 countries implement more than 100 mass media and interpersonal communication projects since 1989.
For example, an Indonesian TV series "Alang-Alang," sponsored by JHU/CCP and directed by one of Indonesia's leading directors, Teguh Karya, shows the resilience of a young girl from a Jakarta slum and portrays the importance of family and community support, the need for education and the problems of multiple pregnancies.
Singhal's initial findings from his studies in India and China indicate soap operas promoting family planning and the status of women influence behavior.
Scheduled to air later this year in Peru, "Time of Love," a 10-episode TV mini-series, is another example of a JHU/CCP "enter-educate" production. Funded by the Packard Foundation, the mini-series portrays two young couples who deal with romantic relationships and parental strife.
The West has been slow to incorporate socially responsible messages in entertainment programming, and programs such as soap operas could do more, according to Vibert Cambridge, director of the Communication and Development Studies Program at Ohio University.
"A recent study showed that only one out of 10 U.S. soap opera episodes that involved characters in sexual situations included discussions about the repercussions of their actions," Cambridge said.
The Communication and Development Studies Program, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has had students from India, Bangladesh, Morocco, South Africa, Ghana, Croatia, Latin America and South Africa.
Participants at the conference, part of the 29th annual Communication Week May 2-10, include Patty Cabrera, who sang the national anthem at the Republican Convention last August and was voted one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World 1996," and Stanford University's Albert Bandura, a leading theorist of the enter-education concept. More than 30 Ohio University faculty, students and administrators will serve as presenters or moderators at the conference. Presenters include professors Michael Bugeja, Anne Cooper-Chen, Jeanne Heaton and Mel Helitzer. Countries represented will include South Africa, Nepal, Cambodia, Jamaica, Tanzania, Brazil and Peru.
The first conference was held at the University of Southern California in 1989.
In addition to the contacts listed on the first page, more information is available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ohiou.edu/~enteredu/.