Graduate Program

Communication Studies

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2010

Thesis Director

Olaf Hoerschelmann

Thesis Committee Member

Marita Gronnvoll

Thesis Committee Member

Elizabeth Gill

Abstract

Entertainment-Education is the process of weaving social messages into programming intended to entertain. The term was coined several decades ago, and the strategy has been widely used in mediated programs in the United States and abroad, particularly in developing countries. This thesis critiques the practice from a critical/culture perspective and particularly highlights issues that stem from political economy of media, agency, and critical pedagogy. To accomplish this, the volume is broken down into four sections: a survey of E-E and an explanation of its theoretical framework, an examination of Get Schooled, an initiative that fits the profile of an E-E intervention, an ideological critique of Grey's Anatomy and Law & Order: SVU, two primetime dramas that have been used for E-E interventions, and a discussion of the practice's future. At its best, Entertainment-Education, as it is being used in the contexts I have outlined here, is a bandage over problems that stem from larger cultural concerns. At its worst, it is a manipulative tool that has the potential to worsen the situations producers claim they want to remedy. If it continues to be used to communicate public information, I recommend that producers be much more mindful of their partnerships, their perpetuation of neoliberal ideology, and their intended and unintended impacts on global culture.

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