Document details

Entertainment-Education and Participation: Assessing the Communication Strategy of Soul City

[author] (2001), 30 pp.

Other editions: also published in in Journal of International Communication, volume 7:2, 2001, pages 25-51

"The aim of this article is to introduce and analyze the case of the South Africa media NGO ‘Soul City – Institute of Health and Development Communication’ in order to discuss how an entertainment-education based communication strategy can contribute to a participatory development process. Firstly, I introduce the history and development of Soul City. Secondly, I provide a brief historical overview of the developments within entertainment-education in relation to the general discussions of communication for development. Finally I present Soul City’s communication strategy, the edutainment model, and analyze how Soul City contributes to the further development of entertainment-education strategies in both theory and practice. As so often seen before, practice comes prior to theory, and I thus argue that what Soul City is de facto doing is anticipating the theoretical advancement I wish to argue for referent entertainment-education (EE). The point I argue is that Soul City represents a third pathway in a field which traditionally has been divided between two major schools of thought: the diffusion of innovation-oriented theories and methodologies on one hand and the participatory theories and methodologies on the other. A new paradigm within communication and development is emerging." (Abstract)