Educational entertainment


Educational entertainment, also referred to by the portmanteau edutainment, is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term has been used as early as 1933. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainment value. It has been used by academia, corporations, governments, and other entities in various countries to disseminate information in classrooms and/or via television, radio, and other media to influence viewers' opinions and behaviors.

History

Concept

Interest in combining education with entertainment, especially in order to make learning more enjoyable, has existed for hundreds of years, with the Renaissance and Enlightenment being movements in which this combination was presented to students. Komenský in particular is affiliated with the "school as play" concept, which proposes pedagogy with dramatic or delightful elements.
Poor Richard's Almanack demonstrates early implementation of edutainment, with Benjamin Franklin combining entertaining and educational content, such as puzzles and rules of conduct, into an instructional entity for colonists.
Later development of the concept of edutainment can be tied to Walt Disney, with his first educational short film, Tommy Tucker's Tooth, being commissioned and shot in 1922 for the Deneer Dental Institute. The entry of the U.S. into World War II also had a major impact on the popularity of educational entertainment, as a relationship between Disney and the U.S. government formed; Disney was able to experiment with educational and nonfiction films in a way that continued even after the war, with series such as True-Life Adventures and Disneyland. In the transcript of an interview with Alexander P. de Seversky from The Walt Disney Archives, of which its date and interviewer is unknown, the following quotation is found:Since the 1970s, various groups in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Latin America have used edutainment to address health and social issues such as substance abuse, immunization, teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. Initiatives in major universities, such as Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, NGOs such as PCI-Media Impact, and government agencies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have produced edutainment content.
Modern forms of edutainment include television productions, film, museum exhibits, and computer software which use entertainment to attract and maintain an audience, while incorporating deliberate educational content or messages. It is also apparent that educational elements are becoming implemented into traditionally recreational realms, such as vacations and games.

Terminology

The term edutainment has been used as early as 1933, with The Australian Women's Weekly describing it as a newly coined word in the broadcast industry for a genre of programming that blended radio lectures with elements of comedy shows. In 1954, Walt Disney used it to describe their True Life Adventures series. The noun edutainment is a neologistic portmanteau used by Robert Heyman in 1973 while producing documentaries for the National Geographic Society. It was used by Dr. Chris Daniels in 1975 to encapsulate the theme of his Millennium Project. This project later became known as The Elysian World Project. The terms "edutainment" were used in 2001 to explain how the CRUMPET project, on context-aware and personalised Tourism, refers to people travelling for adventure yet who also travel for education and business and who do not perceive themselves as classical "tourists". The offshoot word "Edutainer" has been used by Craig Sim Webb since before the turn of the millennium to describe an individual who offers edutainment presentations and performances.

Application

Audio and video

Schoolhouse Rock, Wishbone, Sesame Street, and Bill Nye the Science Guy are examples of shows that use music and video to teach topics like math, science, and history. Using music to aid memory dates back to the passing of ancient oral traditions, including the Iliad and the Odyssey. Much of what edutainment can offer through audio and video especially, is accessible over the internet on platforms such as YouTube, with such channels as Vsauce, CGP Grey, MinutePhysics, Meet Arnold, Veritasium, and Crash Course.
Public Service Broadcasting is a band that incorporates audio and footage from the British Film Institute into their music and performances, and this partnership helps the British Film Institute showcase its material; their album Inform-Educate-Entertain, which covers topics such as the climbing of Mount Everest and highway safety, demonstrates the connection between the concept of edutainment and their music.

Film and television

Motion pictures with educational content appeared as early as 1943, such as Private Snafu, and can still be seen in films such as An Inconvenient Truth. After World War II, educational entertainment shifted towards television. Television programs can be divided into three main categories: those with primarily educational intentions, those with a high degree of both education and entertainment, and entertainment shows with incidental or occasional educational value.
Mexican TV producer Miguel Sabido pioneered in the 1970s a form of edutainment via telenovelas, "soap operas for social change". The "Sabido method" has been adopted in many other countries subsequently, including India, Peru, Kenya, and China. In Mexico, the government in the 1970s successfully used a telenovela to promote family planning to curb the country's high birth rate.
The third season of the television show MTV Shuga was analyzed by researchers and then published online in 2017 in terms of its effects related to its goal of educating African youth about sexual health and HIV, and secondarily, gender-based violence. In the randomized control trials, those in the treatment group who watched the show for six months were "almost twice as likely" to get tested at HIV testing centers; mixed results were found in regards to the show's effects on gender-based violence.

Healthcare

Educating the public about health issues is a focus for many stakeholders, including the pharmaceutical industry. In recent years, several initiatives have used educational entertainment principles to highlight specific conditions or wider healthcare issues. Examples include In Memory about dementia, Millefeuille about psoriasis and This is Axiom about the challenges facing the UK's National Health Service.

Games

Games fulfill a number of educational purposes. Some games may be explicitly designed with education in mind, while others may have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games, including board, card, quizzes, and video games, may be used in an educational environment. Educational games are designed to teach people about certain subjects, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play.
According to Paraskeva, at least 68% of American households play video games. Many recent research articles postulate education and gaming can be joined to provide academic benefits.
According to Van Eck, there are three reasons why games are considered learning tools: 1. Ongoing research that has included the last 20 years of educational findings have proven that digital games can be educational; 2. The new generation of today wants "multiple streams of information", which includes quick and frequent interaction that allows inductive reasoning; and 3. The mere popularity of games has created a billion-dollar industry. The idea of playing a game assumes the person is engaging in that activity by choice. The activity should have some value of "fun". This does not mean that the person is engaging in the activity only for leisure pursuits; it can also include the desire to learn a skill, connect with other gamers, and spend time in a chosen activity. The activity needs to remain one of choice for the gamer.
Kim supports the use of off-the-shelf games with meta-cognitive strategies to provide an increase in students' cognitive performance.

Radio and podcasts

can serve as an effective vehicle for educational entertainment. The British radio soap opera The Archers has for decades been systematically educating its audience on agricultural matters; likewise, the Tanzanian radio soap opera Twende na Wakati was written primarily to promote family planning.
Likewise, podcasts have begun to exemplify the concept of edutainment, with some radio programs also becoming available in this digital format. Not only are there series with educational elements that are listened to recreationally, but there are also podcasts used as educational tools. Lessons based on podcasts have increased in popularity, with TeachersPayTeachers finding that lesson plans relating to podcasts rose in downloads by 21 percent and 650 percent in 2014 and 2015, respectively, which corresponded with the release of Serial.
Other successful radio programs and/or podcasts that have fused entertainment and education include:
  • DJ Nihal's BBC Radio 1 radio show which centered around 'edutainment'. He mentions this term each time the show is broadcast.
  • "The Lawsons/Blue Hills" – a radio program that was designed to help Australian farmers adjust to new farming methods.
  • "Tinka Tinka Sukh" – a Hindi-language radio program that results in environmental and health improvements in India.
  • Soul City – A successful South African radio serial drama that carried AIDS prevention messages.
  • The Donut Shop – A successful internet radio show talk about educational games that they think could be used in today's schools.
  • Radio Ado and its radio-drama "Pildoritas de la Vida Real", a Mexican radio soap opera designed to disseminate sexual education among teenagers. This radio-drama was produced by the University of Guadalajara and teenagers from Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico.
  • Khirki Mehendiwali – In an endeavour to improve maternal and child health practices in Bihar, a 37 episode long Radio Show Khirki Mehendiwali was created for the rural audience by BBC Media Action, India. Each approximately 15-minute episode beautifully blends information with entertainment to disseminate one specific message on maternal and child health. The show provides a window to the world to its rural listeners by not only giving them a glimpse of the world outside but also unlocking voices, feelings, dreams and information, which they had hitherto not heard or experienced.
  • Freakonomics Radio — A radio program, which is also released as a podcast, in which the complexities of everyday life are discussed by the author and co-author of the corresponding book, Freakonomics.
  • Invisibilia — The podcast series aspires to "explore the invisible forces that shape human behavior — things like ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions."
  • RadioLab — A radio program, which is also available as a podcast, that combines the studies of science, philosophy, and human nature.
  • Science Friday — A radio program that is also released as a podcast, which discusses science in a fun way.
  • Stuff You Should Know — A podcast that educates listeners about various topics while employing a conversational tone.
  • TED Radio Hour — A radio program and podcast that examines themes and ideas, using excerpts from TED Talks.