Entertainment-Education in the United States

Entertainment-education (E-E) is the planned use of entertainment media to communicate prosocial messages to mass audiences. It differs from standard informational programming and public service announcements in that it is typically higher in entertainment value. Unlike international efforts in E-E, in which media programs are often written and produced with the prosocial message in mind, in the United States most E-E messages are embedded in existing television programs. Thus, the message is developed to fit into the existing narrative. Although it has been successfully employed in international efforts, E-E programs have not been used widely in the United States. When they have been used, they have been used to educate the general public on a wide array of issues, such as children's immunization, adolescents' sexual health, and literacy.

Characteristics of the American media market, such as media saturation and the for-profit industry, pose unique problems for E-E efforts. In international efforts, there is little competition for the audience's attention because there are so few media markets. In contrast, in the United States an individual television program has much competition. Many popular TV programs are watched by fewer than 20% of American households. Further, the American media industry is a highly profitable business, and some scholars have argued that campaign designers may find it difficult to convince the industry to include prosocial messages that have the potential to lower entertainment value.

Despite these obstacles, most scholars agree that E-E programs have existed in the United States since 1969. Three early efforts of E-E deserve mention: Sesame Street, Happy Days, and the Harvard Alcohol Project's Designated Driver Campaign. Sesame Street, [Page 298]a popular children's education program, is widely recognized as the first E-E television program in the United States. Developed in 1969 by the Children's Television Workshop, Sesame Street has been found to affect children's knowledge and behavior. Specifically, children who watch Sesame Street are more likely to spend time reading than those children who do not watch Sesame Street. In the 1970s, Happy Days was successful in disseminating a prosocial message through one of its episodes. In the episode, one of the lead characters, Fonzie, went to the library and ended up getting a library card even though his original intent was to pick up girls. After the show was aired, library card ownership increased. In 1988, the Harvard Alcohol Project partnered with the media industry to promote the use of designated drivers in one of the first coordinated E-E campaigns in the United States. The campaign included spots on television programs watched by adolescents, such as the hit TV sitcom The Cosby Show. The project's campaign is credited with being a catalyst in changing social norms for drinking and driving.

In more recent years, national organizations such as Hollywood, Health and Society, the Media Project, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (NCPTP) have worked with television writers and producers to include health messages in television programs popular among adolescents. These organizations also provide scriptwriters and producers with tip sheets on coverage of health issues via their Web pages. Healthy messages have been embedded in such popular programs as ER, Friends, Dawson's Creek, and Everwood and in teen magazines such as Teen People. For example, the NCPTP worked with the writers and creators of Everwood to include a teen pregnancy story line for one of the show's lead characters.

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