Reality v. Perception
Most everyone will agree that education is important. We need to “prepare the future generations of leaders.” And how to we reach youths? Seeing as most kids spend a majority of their time watching tv or surfing the interwebs, education-entertainment makes sense in theory. But just because something makes sense in theory doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense in practice. I have my doubts about education-entertainment, which greatly resemble those of Lauren, so forgive me I keep this short. Successful education-entertainment programs assume that you are actually reaching the population through the form of entertainment. If we’re talking about television shows (because how successful can a radio program be?), success assumes that the population have wide access to television. While this might be true of many “Western” countries, it’s not exactly a universal principle. Furthermore, one must ask who’s creating the program? Either there are independent, organizations creating content, or it’s government owned. Are there implications if the government is deciding what content is acceptable. There is always a fear of big brother teaching its people what it wants its people to believe. If you teach young kids 2+2=5, are they going to believe it for the rest of their lives? And if governments for some reason (think population control) does decide to do that through education-entertainment, who is to tell them they can’t? Should education-entertainment be something regulated on an international level?
There are many questions left to be answered in this field. While I whole-heartedly believe that using regular entertainment outlets to promote education is a great, brilliant idea, I don’t think it is has been fully developed yet. But hey, that’s what the future is for and what the future generations must determine.
Development & Communication: Broadband in Africa
The Internet has been the future for a good 20 years now. I’m not sure what I’d do without it, and I’m not alone. The Comcast DNS (servers) went down last week, and Twitter lit up like a firestorm with angry users who couldn’t finish that episode of Glee on Hulu or keep up-to-the-minute tabs on ESPN Sportscast.
Most of the world has pretty decent Internet access now, with a lot of countries even surpassing the US. The BBC has an awesome map of broadband growth over the last 10 years: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11864350
Most of the world has at least 25% broadband access in each country. Africa and the Middle East/South Asia have most of the countries where access hasn’t even hit 10%. That’s partially indicative of development, as well as the urbanization of wealth. Because of the expensive of high-speed Internet, or Internet in general, many of these countries rely more on mobile access for development. But the BBC focuses on Kenya, which has a different story.
In 2009, the first broadband cables entered Kenya. As a result, its one of only a few countries in Africa with more than 10% of the population connected. (Only Morocco and Nigeria are above 25%, Egypt is close behind). As a result of government policy helping to introduce broadband and bring major companies like Google and Nokia, Kenya is establishing itself as a major digital hub. Kamal Budhabhatti, “the closest the country has to a Bill Gates,” is the CEO of a banking software company that brings in $15 million and employs about 200 people. Its not a huge dent in the population, but its this kind of start up that starts to establish itself as a stable base for tech investment from around the world. And it’s a trend worth watching.
Development isn’t just about outside aid or education…it can also come from responsible governments and companies that are able to spark development and technology through policies and investment in human capital.
BBC News “Broadband world: Connecting Africa,” Dec. 2 2010. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11880594)
Entertainment-Education: Girl meets Boy meets Medical Check-up
A few of this week’s readings focused on entertainment-education (E-E). I am familiar with the concept in American television, but it is especially interesting to see it used in other nations.
While watching a Taiwanese program entitled Single Princesses and Blind Dates (don’t judge), the storyline highlighted the importance of yearly medical check-ups for young adults. Granted, this component of the story could have been better integrated, but it was created for educational purposes, not just to move the story along.
Entertainment-education is an interesting and useful field, but I question the significant impact of education-entertainment TV shows in certain contexts. Chatterjee et al. (2008), note that E-E programs have less of an impact on changes in the beliefs of more educated individuals, as these people generally agree with the messages presented (p. 23). In many countries, those with greater education tend to be wealthier urban dwellers that likely have access to televisions. It seems as if these shows send the message to people who already think similarly. So, what’s the point? While, limited access to television may lead to co-viewing and greater discussion in rural and disadvantaged communities (Chatterjee, 2008, 30), is this generally the case or does it only apply to certain countries or specific populations within countries?
While my questions are probably an oversimplification of the ideas, and other studies may note significant, more generalizable effects, I wonder about the magnitude of the social impact of E-E television programs.
http://www.viki.com/channels/1411-single-princesses-and-blind-date/videos/11517/6
Chatterjee, J.S. et al. (2008) Jasoos Vijay: A Model of Knowledge, Attitude, Discussion, Self-Efficacy & Behaviour. BBC World Service Trust
Edutainment for Future Terrorists
Some may be surprised to know that terrorist groups like Hamas, use the same public engagement strategies to infiltrate and influence children and society as do government actors. In fact, anyone with a camera and access to the internet these days can pitch their own public diplomacy campaign. Though what is truly disturbing is that terrorist groups use children television shows to target children as future recruits in the ongoing “War against Terror.” The idea is that you can teach children how to be the best ‘defender of Islam’ by preparing them to fight against the ‘terrorists of the West’. Chatterjee et al. (2008), claims that programs have little to no influence on the beliefs of educated individuals. Imagine how impressionable children are! This is yet another example of how non-state actors are increasingly gaining power in shaping the public sphere.
Take a look:
E-E Campaigns: They aren’t THAT bad
Did anyone else have a problem with the Dutta article “Theoretical Approaches to Entertainment Education Campaigns: A Subaltern Critique”? Certainly, I agree E-E campaigns should be more comprehensive in their focus. However, as I read I couldn’t help but think that the author was making a false link between what organizations have accomplished in their E-E campaigns and the lack of progress in other problem-areas of society (ie: poverty). In addition, while poverty should be addressed and mitigated as a way to improve health care and ultimately bolster international security, health issues, like HIV/AIDS, are still vitally important to address (especially in the areas that these E-E campaigns are targeted).
Maybe it was just the tone of the article, but Dutta seems to think that those are negligible. Moreover, he is fairly accusatory of USAID and other international aid organizations. While there may certainly be some issues with some past action, there have also been enormous successes that can be attributed to the work of such organizations. I do not think that blame can be focused solely upon large international aid agencies. Instead, it should be assumed by the community as a whole and be perhaps set as a target for cooperating together to accomplish a single, unifying objective.
Source: Dutta, Mohan Jyoti. (2006). “Theoretical Approaches to Entertainment Education Campaigns: A Subaltern Critique,” Health Communication 20(3), pp. 221-231.
Write whatever you like: I’ll Read it how I want
The key framing issue in pubic diplomacy is that there is no magic bullet, no special phrase, no shortcut that means your message will have the impact on the listener or even that they will understand and take away from it what you want them to do or know.
Meaning: You can tell me all day long that red is the best color, but I’m just going to think you are arrogant and that you’re trying to change me.
You can show us the ways in which Archie Bunker is wrong and has to learn or grow from the cultural challenges he faces from his hippie daughter but we’ll still think that old racist man is the best character.
Just watch Fox News for a moment. They will take an issue and create a powerful frame for it, “Ground Zero Mosque.” When in fact, there is no mosque- instead a religious center, and it’s not on ground zero- it is a few blocks away. It’s funded by terrorists (coincidentally one of which is also a large stake-holder in Viacom), but the frame created is the most powerful. You can try as you like to re-frame the issue to see it more positively but you will forever have to allude to it with their language. If the government could frame an issue half as well as the conservatives- maybe we could penetrate positive ideas about the US into the Middle East.
Keith Olbermann (the link above), argues rather passionately that the frame is not just inaccurate but actually just xenophobic racist ramblings from paranoid people. The broadcast is more than a little heavy handed, beginning with a reference to the Holocaust and ending with ’Goodnight and Good luck.’ But here is does EXACTLY what the current model of public diplomacy he confronts another’s beliefs head on with one clear message and reiterates it throughout.
Do you think any of the people at Fox reading this article were persuaded? Nope.
Why? Because much like the belief in the magic bullet, if a conservative even got past the Holocaust references, the message went against their values. They’d just argue that he didn’t address the funding problems or terrorism. That he is arrogant and smug.
The U.S. is to the Middle East as Olbermann is to Conservatives.
Diplomats can sponsor ways to circumvent and challenge beliefs, to preach about how the U.S. approach to government is the best or that the women’s right to drive a car is essential but until we take it down a notch and listen and provide new context and persuasive ways to exchange in a conversation… it will all sound something like this:
To summarize American cultural imperialism, we know best, exploitation, entitlement, greed, building mini-Americas around the world.
