Entertainment and Education

Sapna navigates the line between entertainment and education. 

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Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments. How we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Occasions matter for arguments. That is to say, where arguments occur can influence what we say during disagreements. And that doesn't just mean that I might alter my tone if I'm arguing in a library or something like that.

Aristotle, writing in the 4th century BCE, noticed the importance of occasion. He wrote about three types. Ceremonial, forensic, and deliberative. Ceremonial, which, if we're being fancy, we can call the Epidictic. These are occasions that call for arguments that are about us. Who are we? What are our values?

What are our shared characteristics? Much of public discourse, graduation speeches, wedding speeches, funeral speeches, and obituaries. You just founded a company, inaugural addresses. These are what we might call ceremonial [00:01:00] because they all ask the same fundamental question. Who are we? And the focus is largely in the present.

Who are we now that we have graduated from college? A good wedding speech might focus on two wonderful people finding love and forming a new bond together. An affecting speech at a funeral might celebrate a person's life and showing how their legacy lives on among the gathered family and friends. A uniting inaugural address.

Think of my fellow Americans. imagines a divided nation coming together for shared purposes. Abraham Lincoln was especially good at this in his second inaugural address delivered 41 days before his assassination in 1865 with his assassin in the audience, he said with malice towards none and charity for all.

With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to [00:02:00] care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan. To do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Today's guest on When We Disagree is Sapna Suresh, a PhD in Communication. She studies persuasion and social influence, including message design, message channels, and message interpretation.

Sapna, tell us an argument story. 

Sapna Suresh: Hi, so I have a really interesting argument that deals with entertainment education. 

Michael Lee: What, um, what is entertainment education for those of us who don't know? 

Sapna Suresh: So it's pretty much what it sounds like. It's when you have one or more educational messages and they're couched in an entertaining format.

So that could be something like a short film. a radio serial, a television program, or something like that. And it's, [00:03:00] um, grounded in a pretty rigorous theory of change. There's social cognitive theory that has influenced their series of identification. But the, the general idea behind it is to be able to convey a message subtly but effectively, typically about health issues, but I've also seen instances where they talk about social issues.

Michael Lee: What are some famous examples where entertainment education has either worked or not worked, as we kind of set up the argument? 

Sapna Suresh: Yeah, so there's some great examples. A lot of times this has been deployed, um, in the developing world, but there's some also interesting examples from here in the U. S. One that immediately comes to mind is, there was a Hulu show called East Lowes High, and that ran for multiple seasons, and it was, you know, It's centered around issues that were specific to Mexican American youth, Mexican American teens and you know, interested in issues such as like reproductive health, um, cancer screenings, things [00:04:00] like that.

And it's really about picking members of that target community or picking characters that resemble members of the target community and the kinds of issues that they genuinely and authentically experience in curating a show, um, that's sort of infused with the learnings, but really for that community.

Michael Lee: Okay, so what is the, what is the dispute that you've been in since you've researched this issue? 

Sapna Suresh: Yeah, so something that's really cool, I think, about being a communication researcher is it feels really accessible to people who are not academics, like you're able to have a pretty easy discussion with them about things that you think are really technical but are also super tangible to them.

And so when I meet people for the first time and they ask what I study, this is one of the things that I like to bring up because I think it's really cool. People obviously like media. Um, and I think that It's interesting that you can use media as a lever to teach people things, too. And so I recall this one specific [00:05:00] time when I was meeting somebody new, and they were in a creative profession, like, totally outside the realm of academia, and I was beginning to explain this concept to them, because, you know, just, This is one example of how you can apply, um, persuasion and social influence researches through entertainment education.

And so when I was specifically bringing up that subtly yet effectively part, I got hit with an oof, that's kind of creepy. And that really took me by surprise. And now granted, I didn't really get into the weeds about like, this is really good to address health disparities or systems of racism and oppression that undergird why these disparities exist.

But it was the comment that kind of made me come to like a full stop in the moment. 

Michael Lee: Did the person elaborate on what's creepy? 

Sapna Suresh: Yeah, you know, I, I would say, I kind of stopped explaining after that and we were in a group so I think that the conversation kind of [00:06:00] just pivoted from there but I think my interpretation of it and it was a kind of an off the cuff comment and I think she might have said something else about it but I think that it was clear that she thought it was strange that people were actually designing things to influence us and teach us.

using some sort of scientific principle, um, without sort of the recipient's knowledge. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. I mean, spooling that out because it doesn't sound like you encountered a fully formed version of this argument, at least in this instance. Have you encountered this argument other than this one instance out of curiosity?

Sapna Suresh: Yeah. You know, I think what's interesting is I've heard this debate about kind of the ethics and the morality about interventions like this. More so among academics. I think that it's actually kind of cool that somebody else who was not an academic brought it up because I think it's [00:07:00] kind of an insightful and valuable question to ask.

Like, you know, we know that advertisements are trying to do that. I think we all understand that they're trying to influence us to buy a product. Um, I think that there's something. You know, I think academics do a pretty good job of holding themselves, um, to like a standard where they're like reflecting and critically thinking about the work that they do.

Michael Lee: One would hope. Sorry? One would hope. 

Sapna Suresh: Yeah, yeah, and I feel like I'm lucky that I have encountered, um, scholars who have like engaged in this debate, even though they're also People who work on entertainment education. And so I think that that kind of just, even though that was sort of a small interaction, and I've talked about it with people in the academy, I think that just kind of set me on a spiral where I, you know, was thinking about, Who am I, who are we really to decide what's good for others?

Like, I don't know. A lot of times these are seeking to address adverse health consequences. [00:08:00] Um, for example, unintended pregnancy and the way that can derail education and the opportunity for high paying jobs. But I also think about how here in the U. S. we learn about potential negative consequences of, uh, unintended teenage pregnancy and yet People oftentimes choose to, you know, carry the pregnancy to term and have the child and they have the, they have the free will, they have the choice.

And I think that there is something that's kind of fraught about us trying to convince other people that that isn't necessarily a bad thing and trying to subvert their ability, ability to make that choice. 

Michael Lee: Your position in this is pretty interesting because, you know, it's not like you're working for Hulu yet, designing shows with an agenda in mind, thinking.

Well, how can we get this target population to wear more sunscreen through Clifford the Big Red Dog or [00:09:00] whatever the character is? And that's just one silly example that I'll attach to and there are many, many more as you well know. But the question motivating the research is often what is it? How does it show up?

What works? What doesn't work? Not necessarily. Is this ethical or unethical although that's certainly a class of research you could do So what was it about this person's comment that it was creepy that struck you so much when you're when your research largely concerns What works and what doesn't 

Sapna Suresh: yeah, I think it was just like a Like a meta comment that made me think like what really like I Have this innate sense this innate understanding this reflexive thought that what i'm doing Has value it's noble.

It's good And I think what really made me pause was thinking is this all in pursuit of designing a message that ultimately is Doing some harm I [00:10:00] so in in my experience, I've worked actually a little bit with a nonprofit that does produce these shows. And what I'll say that I really appreciate about them is that they have teams who are on the ground in the countries that they develop the programs for, and they do a lot of formative research.

Um, so that's sort of just like open ended focus groups interviews with members of the target communities So I think what is good the one thing that I think is sort of counteracting this this concern I have is I think that they establish the parameters of the show And they tailor it very much based on that formative research So they you know have this theory of change of how they're going to ultimately influence behavior But I think to some extent there are these health problems that exist, but they also You kind of capture the nuance and capture sort of the will and the wants of the members of these communities by some of those open ended initial interviews before developing the program.

Michael Lee: Of the entertainment education genre, how [00:11:00] much of it is produced by these well meaning non profits? 

Sapna Suresh: I think a lot of them are produced by non profits. Um, I don't think it, I would say it's not super common in the U. S. I think that there's sometimes government agencies who will make like short films, for example.

Like I mentioned, um, you know, avoiding unintended pregnancy. There was a short film that I believe was, uh, developed through a grant from the government that was to be played in Planned Parenthood waiting rooms that was about, um, the efficacy and the utility of getting a long acting reversible contraceptive.

Um, and so I think it tends to not be for profit organizations, which I think, also kind of works in its favor. It's like there's something maybe that feels a little less malicious about it when it's a non profit or a government body, um, but I also still feel like I can't ignore that we're a western country and we're kind of [00:12:00] making decisions about what needs to be produced for countries in the global south.

Um, I think that that's another thing that just kind of weighs on my mind of, you know, this is not a thing that the person brought up, but it kind of. exploded in my mind and make me think about all of these ethical implications. 

Michael Lee: In the end, the question of creepiness seems to come down to an issue of both consent, The consent, the prior consent of the audience to be exposed to a persuasive message.

And then also the position of the producer, who are these folks, how have they made a value decision? And then why do they feel like I need to be persuaded to go back to my example, to wear more sunscreen or whatever it is. And so in the end, did this person's comment, and when you've been exposed to this kind of anti.

entertainment education argument, [00:13:00] did it bring up something in you where you were tacitly defending it and thinking, you know, this is a pro social avenue of change here and hadn't questioned the ethics of it so much, or at least from this point of view, and you thought, huh, well, maybe, maybe I need to pause on my tacit support.

Sapna Suresh: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that that sort of summarizes my internal conflict really well, which is, um, I've I've kind of on autopilot, like co signed this for a long time, it kind of made me pause and think about what's really the implication of this, like, I think that there is this genuine benefit.

But I also feel like there are larger philosophical ethical questions that are more in our consciousness these days. And I think especially with the way that people think about like The media having necessarily having particular bias, and I think it's something that's just more at the forefront of everybody's mind.[00:14:00] 

Um, and so I think it's even though this isn't explicitly like political or trying to convey like a, um, the need to buy a certain product. I think that this is yeah, thought of in a way that's supposed to be pro social very much. Um, but I think even those even those instances where we're trying to be persuasive for pro social gain, um, I think we need to be a little bit reflective and make sure that, you know, we're having, even if not the explicit consent, we're getting some sort of input, um, we're getting some sort of a green light from people who are going to be receiving the message, so it's not just sort of fully being manipulative.

Michael Lee: That's right, and we can certainly think of examples, whether it's the debates about subliminal messaging after World War II that were so controversial, or propaganda in Looney Tunes cartoons again after World War [00:15:00] II, or whatever. During the Cold War that functioned as entertainment education that obviously had a clear political agenda that were made or made in support of a political agenda, but also by private corporations.

And mass exposed to a population that didn't really sign up for it. And so certainly there are these more limited examples, the contraception example you give, but also we've all experienced these on some level. entertainment education. It really just sort of depends on how broadly you define it. 

Sapna Suresh: Right, because I think that that infuses a lot like That is sort of I think the cornerstone of a lot of like children's programming is trying to teach them about like Values like right and wrong trying to teach them about like the way that they should act in the world And I think yeah again, it's it's very much done.

I think with the positive intention. Um, but you know, like you mentioned, there's all [00:16:00] of those examples. I think that there were some used to, um, used to really, uh, not sure what the word I'm looking for is, um, rile up the youth, the Hitler youth, uh, preceding World War or like leading into World War II. Um, so yeah, I think that there's, you know, there's also like the possibility for harm for children and.

Yeah, it's something to just be, I think, conscious of. You're right, because we've seen ways in which this has played out in history that have been, um, less than ideal, even when sponsored by the government. 

Michael Lee: Sapna, thank you so much for being on When We Disagree. 

Sapna Suresh: Awesome, thank you so much for having me. 

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee.

Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail. [00:17:00] com.