Stories have existed before recorded history through cave paintings, speeches and gestures, capturing the imagination of people throughout time. Despite the change in medium of communication, the desire to tell and hear stories from others remains the same. Stories excite people’s imagination; create emotional connections and empathy with imaginary characters. Engaging and inspiring stories encourage the audience to believe and motivate them into action.

 

Stories have the power to influence conceptions of identity. Stories reshape social values and create genuine long-term behavior responses – they are a powerful medium for social change. Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique inspired the second-wave feminist movement in the 1960s, one that changed women’s working conditions, family life and sexuality.  When Tom Hanks gave a human face to HIV victims and homosexuality in the film Philadelphia, he encouraged for the first time public discussion and empathy. This is the power of stories and it can be applied in the development sector.

 

When it comes to changing attitudes, behaviors, knowledge and perception for sensitive issues (such as family planning, HIV/AIDs and domestic abuse in conservative societies), the application of Entertainment-Education (E-E) becomes an innovative, effective and almost necessary solution. Using the power of storytelling, E-E employs radio, television, music and theatre for behavior change in communities.

 

The story began in 1969, a rags-to-riches Peruvian soap opera Simplemente was a story about a lead character Maria who, after passing her literacy classes, became a seamstress and eventually a successful business woman and a happy wife after. The soap opera was hugely popular. Enrollment in adult literacy classes increased significantly. Sales of Singer sewing machines soared

 

From Simplemente, Miguel Sabido, a television producer in Mexico, developed and piloted a methodology to produce entertaining programs with educational impact on the audience. The principle is simple. Characters in E-E programs connect with the audience as they serve as role models to bring to life new behavioral change objectives, which influence their values and inspire behavior more powerfully than direct appeals for change. In this way, the audience thinks of the new insights actively, without having information filtered by an expert.

 

The use of E-E as a communication strategy has grown significantly in the last twenty years. Researches scrutinizing the correlation between this phenomenon and the evolution of some social indicators have boomed. Researchers have linked soap operas, featuring particularly independent female characters, with the rapid fertility drop in Brazil. On the other side of the globe, the facilitated access to cable television, a study says, is connected with a reduction in fertility rate and with young boys’ positive attitude towards more equal gender relations.

 

Besides tailor-made shows, TV series have a long history of unintended effects on their audience. Think of the massively popular Japanese TV series Oshin. It was aired in Iran as a positive vehicle for women’s emancipation. As a result, despite the TV series aimed at promoting values of hard work and self-determination, it touched the sensitivity of Ayatollah Khoomeini, who punished the Director of Iran’s broadcasting agency with 50 lashes.

 

Learning new behaviors is simply the first step and may only be short lived. For more sustainable behavior change, a general shift in social values is necessary. If it is in the nature of entertainment education to get there, it is another story. In this direction, scholars have investigated whether E-E programs create ‘second-order changes’, those involving a fundamental, transformational shift in values and beliefs. In order to do so, quite a few aspects must be taken into account. First, education-entertainment shows require being sensitive to the audience’s doubts, fears and inhibitions in performing new behaviors. Second, long-term shows are crucial in providing the space for the audience to reflect and discuss the new ideas within their community. Of course, in order to make change happen, shared consensus towards a new set of values and beliefs must be in place. Fourth, TV shows must favor the establishment of a collective and mutual identification. Women and men cannot feel as if they are alone in such a tacit revolution. One that reshapes old social norms.

 

In South Africa, Soul City – a television series addressing various social issues – is a good example. The series indicated another course of action to deal with domestic abuse during one of its episodes. Previously, the public kept silent from intervening in domestic abuse situations. Through its characters, Soul City provided the audience with the alternative of banging pots and drums outside the house where domestic abuse took place – within the year neighborly interventions spread to other townships of South Africa.

 

The 19th century Romantics assigned highest value to the experience of intense emotion. This meant to cultivate the imagination through poetry, music, literature and art. E-E employs, we can speculate, the Romantics approach in essence. E-E can be one of the most powerful tools for change in health, women and minority rights as well as in conflicts prevention. E-E cannot replace direct intervention in the field, of course. They must go hand in hand. It is crucial to connect youth to education and employment by working within communities and together with the government. However, putting E-E together with direct interventions can have a far-reaching impact, holistic and undeniably effective, if employed sensitively.