Turtles and Peacocks: Collaboration in Entertainment?Education Television

Abstract

This Dutch study focused on how health communication professionals and television professionals collaborate in the design and implementation of entertainment-education (E-E) television programs. A conceptualization of the collaboration process is offered by drawing upon Bourdieu's general theory of practice. An E-E collaboration is a strange kind of marriage between these two fields. Health communication professionals are perceived by television professionals as turtles (trustworthy and solid, but slow), while television professionals are perceived by health communication professionals as peacocks (arrogant, with big egos and preening their feathers). These differences can be resolved by jointly creating a new frame of reference and constituting a new genre of E-E television.

Advertising, consumer behaviour and health: Exploring possibilities for health promotion

“…This development is internationally known as the 'entertainment education strategy'. [33][34][35] In essence, this approach tries to incorporate health issues in entertainment programming in such a way as to foster healthy behaviour patterns on the screen, and, preferably, with the audience. 36 In the past, this has led to such initiatives as the cooperation between health practitioners and scriptwriters to improve the portrayal of drinking in the situation comedy M*A*S*H. 37 More recently, the Dutch Heart Foundation has participated in the production of three episodes of a popular hospital drama series aired in the Netherlands.…”

Sex Roles in Health Storylines on Prime Time Television: A Content Analysis

“…These scholars further described EE as a communication strategy that can be used to "disseminate ideas to bring about behavioral and social change" (Singhal and Rogers 2002, p. 117). In the public health arena, entertainment-education has been embraced as a cost-effective means to communicate health information in an engaging format to a mass audience (Brodie et al 2001;Bouman 2002;Glik et al 1999;Valente et al 2007). Within the context of popular prime time programming in the United States, an audience of millions of rapt viewers is virtually guaranteed.…”

A new model for science communication that takes ethical considerations into account

“…4 It also differs essentially from the Entertainment-Education model used in health education for the same reason, because the emotions provoked through the Three-E model are intended to make the underlying values more explicit. 5,2 The proposed Three-E model does use emotions to involve the audiences, but it refrains from unfounded, often fear-provoking one-liners such as the ones used by some radical environmentalists. An important ingredient of the Three-E model is the implicit explanation of the scientific method in relation to the subject of entertainment.…”