Narrative Persuasion and Social Norms in Entertainment-Education: Results from a Radio Drama in Mozambique

Measurement of social norms for entertainment-education

BACKGROUND

While there has been a marked increase in measurement and scholarship surrounding social norms in recent years, there is little evidence related to social norms measurement in the context of health campaigns utilizing entertainment-education. Entertainment-education goals and objectives have shifted over time to include social norms and an update is needed to merge contemporary practice with the most recent measures from the literature. The aim of the present study was to analyze commonly used quantitative measures and their properties for social norms and entertainment-education, specifically on the topic of family planning, to bolster ongoing research and practice efforts by validating items for social norms measurement in entertainment-education programs.

METHODS

The study used data from a survey conducted with 438 married women aged 19-34 in the Central Province of Zambia in 2019 who were exposed to the entertainment-education initiative Kwishilya (Over the Horizon), a Bemba-language, 156-episode radio program designed to shift social norms on family planning. Multiple items were included to measure descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and outcome expectations. Exploratory factor analysis and estimates of scale reliability were conducted to understand the properties and structure of the social norms items.

RESULTS

Results showed a five-factor solution best fit the data, which accounted for 45.7% of the variance, exhibited fair reliability, and loaded largely as expected.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides a useful tool for practitioners and scholars to use globally to measure important social norms constructs in entertainment-education.

Testing the effectiveness of narrative messages using critical health communication

BACKGROUND

Latinos suffer from health disparities associated with excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of messaging using critical health communication approaches and delivered by two narrative modalities (video and comic book) with similar content that aims to empower Latinos to advocate for social change and to make individual behavior change related to sugary beverage consumption.

METHODS

Participants (N = 129 Mexican American women between 18 and 29 years) completed an online survey before and after exposure to an embedded stimulus. Participants were randomly assigned to a stimulus, a narrative message in video or comic book format, both developed using critical health communication approaches that focused on individual harms and social causes of sugary beverage consumption.

RESULTS

Paired sample t-test results showed that both narrative messages increased intentions to reduce sugary beverage consumption (Video: P < 0.01; d = 0.43; Comic: P = 0.03; d = 0.28). Both groups also demonstrated significant improvements in sugary beverage-related media literacy (Video: P = 0.01, d = 0.34; Comic: P = 0.05, d = 0.25), public health literacy (Video: P = 0.05, d = 0.24; Comic: P = 0.01, d = 0.32), and empowerment to engage in sugary beverage-related community movements (Video: P = 0.003, d = 0.38; Comic: P = 0.034, d = 0.27).

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides initial evidence indicating the effectiveness of narrative messages in two modalities using critical health communication for promoting individual behavioral intention and social activation in reducing sugary beverage consumption.

The Use of Narrative in Science and Health Communication: A Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Many people deny science and reject health recommendations despite widely distributed facts and statistics. Didactic science and health communication is often dry, and relies on the false assumption that people make purely evidence-based decisions. Stories can be a powerful teaching tool by capturing attention and evoking emotion.

OBJECTIVE

We explore the impact and appeal of, and describe best practices for, using narrative (storytelling) versus didactic methods in science and health communication.

PATIENT INVOLVEMENT

No patients were involved in the review process.

METHODS

We searched PubMed and Web of Science for articles either: assessing effectiveness of narrative science/health communication; assessing acceptability of (or preference for) narrative science/health communication; giving advice on how best to use narrative; and/or providing science-based explanations for how/why narrative succeeds.

RESULTS

Narrative science/health communication is effective and appealing for audiences across a variety of topics and mediums, with supporting evidence across fields such as epidemiology, neuroscience, and psychology. Whether narrative or didactic messaging is most effective depends on the topic, audience, and objective, as well as message quality. However, combining narrative with didactic methods is likely to be more effective than using either strategy alone.

DISCUSSION

Narrative science/health communication merits wider implementation and further research. Narrative communication creates openness to information by delaying the formulation of counterarguments.

PRACTICAL VALUE

Science and health communicators should collaborate with cultural and storytelling experts, work directly with their target audiences throughout the message development and testing processes, and rely on popular story elements (e.g., first-person point of view, relatable protagonists) to improve the comprehension, engagement, and thoughtful consideration of their intended audience.

FUNDING

This work was funded by Thirty Meter Telescope, with which two authors (GKS and SD) were affiliated. Otherwise, the funding organization had no role in the study and/or submission.

A systematic review of health communication strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa-2015-2022

Background: Health communication strategies have become critical in managing public health issues across sub-Saharan Africa. In the literature, health communication strategies have been well documented. The studies are often narrow, focusing on individual countries or specific health issues. No research documented and consolidated the health communication strategies across sub-Saharan Africa. This review attempts to catalogue prevalent health communication strategies, how the various countries have implemented these strategies and the barriers to effective health communication practices in Africa. Methods: We systematically reviewed existing literature on health communication strategies in sub-Saharan Africa to answer formulated questions. A Google search was performed in October 2022 with the keywords 'health communication', 'strategies', 'promotion,' 'education,' and 'engagement,' The data reported in this article included evidence published between 2013 and 2023. Selected documents were content analyzed, and significant sections were mapped against specific strategies/themes. These subsets of data were used to present the results and analysis. Results:The review indicates that different health communication strategies have been deployed across Africa. In some countries, specific strategies are used to tackle specific health issues, while a combination of strategies is used in others. In some countries, the strategies are unclear, and implementation is improvised, sometimes misapplied, or truncated by bureaucratic red tape and incompetence. The prevalent strategies are mainly those prescribed from outside with little input from the beneficiaries. Conclusion: The review suggests that using a holistic or multi-pronged health communication approach that is context-specific and participatory could attract more uptakes of health messages.

Nationalism, conspiracy theories and vaccine mandates: Exploring the statism determinants for attitudes to COVID-19 control in China

Introduction

China's loosening its COVID-19 controls highlighted its insufficiency in vaccination protection. Mandatory vaccination might be necessary if the gap cannot be filled over a short time. However, few studies have explored how Chinese people view the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, let alone placing such views in the country's highly politicized context.

Material and methods

The current study utilizes data from a national survey adopting quota sampling to analyze the Chinese public's medical and non-medical considerations when judging compulsory COVID-19 vaccination (n = 1,523). The survey was conducted between 1 and 8 April 2021. All adults aged 18 years and older were eligible to take part. The survey included sociodemographic details, perceived susceptibility to infection, perceived vaccine benefit, attitudes to vaccination policies, nationalism, beliefs in various conspiracy theories and science literacy. Multiple regression analyses were done to examine factors associated with the attitude to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Results

The study reveals that personal risk and benefit perceptions did not dominate the Chinese public's attitude toward vaccination mandates. Instead, nationalism was relatively strongly associated with their willingness to accept mandatory vaccination. Contrary to studies in the West, various conspiracy beliefs and conspiratorial thinking were robustly related to the support for mandatory vacciniation. Science literacy didn't link to the attitude to vaccination mandates. It only had a weak moderating effect on the influence of conspiratorial thinking on attitudes to the vaccination policies.

Conclusions

The results indicated that Chinese people's attitude to the COVID-19 vaccination policy is highly politicized and influenced by conspiracy theories. Given the potentially massive impacts of the COVID-19 infection, we need to educate the Chinese public with more medically valuable and relevant information to help them make sound decisions regarding vaccination. Meanwhile, we can adopt nationalistic tones to improve the persuasion effect, but misinformation during the process must be overcome.

Social Intervention and Governance of Youth School Bullying-Based on Computer Medical Data Analysis

The rise of computational social science provides a new method for campus bullying research based on large-scale data collection, calculation and analysis. Governing the bullying behavior of a middle school through social intervention, and closely observe the service needs and existing problems of the school youth group. This paper analyzes the characteristics, inducements and negative effects of school bullying. Combine drama courses and working group education methods to intervene in school bullying. Intervention work includes making teenagers aware of bullying behavior and identifying bullying types. To achieve the purpose of empathy through role play, bullies can effectively control irrational thoughts, understand their own cognitive biases, and reconcile their own emotions and behaviors. So that the victims can identify the bullying behavior around them in time, and cultivate their resistance and self-protection awareness in the event of bullying. Based on the empirical analysis of social work to intervene in the practical dilemma, and put forward the corresponding countermeasures to reduce the negative impact of school bullying on all aspects of youth, so as to reduce the various social risks brought by school bullying.

"On the Wings of Wishes" (Icchedana), Adolescent Girls in Bangladesh Taking Flight Using A Social Behavioral Change Communication Program to Address Child Marriage Related Social Norms: A Longitudinal Panel Study

This paper examines the relationship between exposure to a transmedia entertainment-education (EE) social and behavior change communication (SBCC) initiative with shifting child marriage-related social norms. Districts were selected purposively, whereas households were selected randomly. A total of 1102 households (n = 3905) with fathers, mothers, adolescent boys, and girls completed the baseline and endline survey. Logistic regression using panel data was conducted. There was a decline in the perceived prevalence of child marriage and dowry exchange within respondents' communities at endline. For injunctive norms, fathers reported significantly higher levels of disapproval for child marriage at endline. However, the reverse was true for mothers and adolescent girls. Almost all respondents had a significantly lower odds of identifying rewards/benefits and punishments/consequences associated with rejecting child marriage at endline. Most respondents with exposure to Icchedana were more likely to report the importance of injunctive norms or expectations of others on their behaviors, than those who were not exposed. Exposure to EE contributes to improved articulation of and shifts in social norms and engenders normative changes at the population level.

Entertainment-Education Campaigns and COVID-19: How Three Global Organizations Adapted the Health Communication Strategy for Pandemic Response and Takeaways for the Future

COVID-19 created a substantial set of challenges for health communication practitioners in the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating entertainment-education (EE) campaigns. EE is a theory and evidence-based communication strategy that employs entertainment media for educational messaging. Here, we briefly review EE campaigns in response to previous health emergencies and present three cases of EE responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from leading global organizations (PCI Media, BBC Media Action, and Sesame Workshop). Responses ranged from adaptation and re-distribution of existing content to creating new content under social-distancing restrictions and utilizing transmedia. These cases demonstrate that EE initiatives responding to future pandemics may be well served by starting with existing infrastructure to quickly build capacity, support, and trust; working with partners to tailor programs to the local context; and continuing to focus on good storytelling while simultaneously considering evolving media formats and theory.