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Abstract

With the growing number of entertainment-education (E-E) interventions worldwide, and the extensive evaluation research on their impacts, the time is ripe to explore in-depth the theoretical underpinnings of entertainment-education. This introductory article provides a historical background to this special issue of Communication Theory on entertainment-education, and charts a 5-pronged theoretical agenda for future research on entertainment-education. Theoretical investigations of entertainment-education should pay greater attention to the tremendous variability among entertainment-education interventions (Agenda #1) and to the various resistances to entertainment-education interventions (Agenda #2). E-E theorizing will also benefit from close investigations of the rhetorical, play, and affective aspects of E-E (Agenda #3). Further, E-E "effects" research should consider employing a broader understanding of individual, group, and social-level changes (Agenda #4) and be more receptive to methodological pluralism and measurement ingenuity (Agenda #5).Communication Theory 118 tended to dominate most theoretical writing and research about entertainment-education, and Sabido's methodology for the design of E-E programs, especially soap operas, influenced most later work on entertainment-education by communication professionals around the world. There exists a natural fit between Bandura's theory and entertainmenteducation interventions, which often seek to influence audience behavior change by providing positive and negative role models to the audience.This special issue of Communication Theory seeks to broaden the theoretical understanding of entertainment-education interventions by inviting consideration of not only social cognitive theory but also of other communication theories that have, or may, contribute to improved understanding and design of future E-E programs. The theories to consider include social learning/social cognitive theory, the elaboration likelihood model, audience involvement, dramatic theories, social constructivism, uses and gratifications, agenda setting, knowledge-gap, cultivation, and the diffusion of innovations. Further, in identifying common themes that characterize entertainment-education interventions and evaluations, we also propose a theoretical agenda for entertainmenteducation scholars.Initially, two main sets of communication scholars were engaged in the investigation of the entertainment-education strategy: (a) a set of communication scholars, including D. Lawrence Kincaid, Phyllis Piotrow, Douglas Storey, Thomas Valente, and their colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Hygiene and Public Health (now the Bloomberg School of Public Health), the Center for Communication Programs, who mainly conducted evaluation research on entertainmenteducation broadcasts to promote family planning in developing nations, and (b) the present guest editors