Theories behind Entertainment Education

Besides fundamental theories reviewed in previous section, the following section focuses on more modern approaches of how E-E functions in TV dramas. A model of effects of narratives as cultural-centric health promotion proposed by Larkey & Hecht (2010), entertainment overcoming resistance model (EORM) (Moyer-Guse, 2008) and Kincaid’s new analysis of drama theory (2002) will be discussed as follows.

2.4.1 A Model of Effects of Narrative as Cultural-Centric Health Promotion Proposed by Larkey and Hecht (2010), this model used a social psychology angle to describe narratives capture richness of cultural elements and reach people’s minds for behavioral change. The term “culture-centric” emphasizes the “centrality of the cultural viewpoint, describing within-culture narrative messages reflecting valid understanding and communicating cultural essence with fidelity” (p. 115).

Also, Fisher (1984) suggests that narratives, stories or words are central to the real life experience which functions as firsthand source for storytelling, and it serves to make sense of our lives embedded with shared social experience. Narrative is one of the primary means that people use to establish identity (McAdams, 1993), organize their thoughts, and communicate using verbal or non-verbal conversation, and in longer sequencing such as stories (Hoshmand, 2005). Narrative has been incorporated into health promotion efforts for years, and it is defined as ‘‘a representation of connected events and characters that has an identifiable structure, is bounded in space and time, and contains implicit or explicit messages about the topic being addressed’’

(Kreuter et al., 2007, p. 222).

The model Larkey and Hecht (2010) presented suggests that when applying a health message or intervention, whether in personal level or sociocultural level, mediators play an important role in evoking outcomes, leading to attitude, beliefs or behavioral change (see Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 A model of cultural-centric narratives in health promotion (Larkey &

Hecht, 2010).

Generally speaking, in narrative characteristics, it requires the story and character to be realistic and engaging. The personal level is proposed that engaging characters should be realistic, likeable, generate empathy, and possess similarity of characters (homophily), which scholars have suggested their centrality to be the persuasive effects of role models (Singhal & Rogers, 2002; Slater, Rouner, & Long, 2006). An engaging story is suggested to have an appealing storyline and sequencing drama. In sociocultural level, Larkey and Hecht suggested that the importance of cultural embeddedness, expanding the concept of homophily (cultural

familiar/similar) to the point that there are cultural cues with characters using cultural resonant language, thus, it evokes a sense of cultural resonance due to familiarity and similarity (2010).

As Slater & Rouner (2002) concluded, absorption (a.k.a. engagement or transportation) in the story is dependent on the storyline appeal, quality of production, and attractiveness of the educational message. An engaging drama can make audiences have cognitive and emotional responses to the performance, which involves massive absorption of the educational message (Ben Chaim, 1984; Blythe et al., 2004;

Boorstin 1990; Kincaid, 2002). Identification and similarity modeling occur when audiences can recognize themselves in the characters and resonate narrative with their own culture.

Beyond these mediators, it is expected that when people hear a good story, they begin to relate themselves to the character or story, and start to share it with others.

The phenomenon of sharing promoted behaviors embedded stories with others is called social proliferation. These mediators lead to attitude or belief changes with intention and action, for example, it could develop health self-identity, perception of social norms and behaviors modeled by narratives. (Larkey & Hecht, 2010).

2.4.2 Entertainment Overcoming Resistance Model (EORM)

Proposed by Moyer-Guse (2008), the “entertainment overcoming resistance model” (EORM) suggested that transportation into narratives should reduce persuasive resistance by reducing the viewer’s ability to produce counterarguments about persuasive message declares in those narratives. The study examined how story

features, for example, narrative transportation and involvement with characters, may reduce three forms of resistance to persuasion – reactance, counterarguing, and perceived invulnerability (Moyer-Guse & Nabi, 2010).

Moyer-Guse (2008) further demonstrated that parasocial interaction can fosters trust of and familiarity with characters, involvement with an E-E character is likely to reduce psychological reactance, and the likability of a character will also minimize reactance. Also, transportation into the dramatic narrative was associated with greater counterarguing. Researchers have also suggested that the experience of identification with a story character should limit the capacity to engage in critical scrutiny of the persuasive subtexts in E-E messages (Moyer-Guse, 2008; Slater, 2002; Slater &

Rouner, 2004).

More recent study (Murphy et al, 2011) conducted an online survey to 167 regular female viewers of the popular TV drama, Desperate Housewives before and after the lymphoma storyline of Lynette Scavo aired. This study followed Moyer-Guse’s (2008) lead, asked respondents to answer questions based on 4 related constructs of the term involvement with a character: wishful identification (“how much would like to be like…”), similarity (“how similar are you to…”);liking (“how much do you like…”); and parasocial interaction (“how much do you feel like you know…”). Each of the questions was measured on a 10-point scale (“not at all” to “a g point scale (“not at all” to “a great deal”).

The result confirmed that involvement or identification with a specific character has been acclaimed as important direct predictor of E-E effects, and character

involvement may be more important for its ability to increase transportation and emotion, thus lead to viewer’s change in knowledge, attitudes and behavior (Murphy et al, 2011). Moreover, transportation into a narrative may produce a state where conscious defenses are lowered, allowing information presented in stories to have a stronger influence than those presented in a non-narrative format.

2.4.3 Drama Theory

As mentioned earlier, Kincaid (2002) propsed that drama is more powerful than any other forms of communication because it tells an engaging and captivating story.

If it makes audience have an emotional involvement and identification to attractive characters, the drama content, plot and character will have a great influence to viewers. This theory provides a theoretical framework to evaluate drama content and its E-E effect to audience, by measuring if there is any emotional involvement and identification occurred when watching dramas.

In order to implement E-E strategy for social change, characters, relationships or the story must make sense to the audience, resembling problems and events that may happen in real lives. When audiences are absorbed in a story, characters engage audience to understand their situation, feel what they feel, predict their next move and sympathize with what will happen to the characters later in the plot. Audience feels like a real participant in the story, the uncertainty of the plot tangles their hearts and keeps them emotionally involved, and further identified themselves with the characters. That is why many social learning theorists all indicated that television viewers are most influenced by scenes and storylines with which they can identify

(Doob & Macdonald, 1979; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1986, Larson, 1991).

Kincaid (2002) continued to argue that a good story has two equally reasonable endings: “what the audience hope will happen” and “what it fears might happen”

(p.138). While the protagonist reveals their aspirations, fears, desires or hopes, their actions trigger audience with a strong emotional response, moreover, audiences often tend to follow the protagonist’s action to the unexpected happened to them. In a well constructed plot, the protagonists and their goal, action and move serve as the major premise; the antagonist and other obstacles serve as a minor premise, together, they bring to the drama’s conclusion and lead to a high degree of active participation and emotional involvement of the audience.

The literature review had explained what health communication and entertainment education are about. Also, entertainment education related theories, planning models, as well as advantages of serial dramas were discussed. Scholars have proven that while health storylines being repeated throughout several episodes or even the entire season, more comprehensive health topics can be provided to the public (Singhal & Roger, 1999; Greenberg et al., 2005). To make a successful E-E intervention in serial soap operas, the themes need to be intriguing, and characters need to be likable and have the concept of homophily. Thus, it evokes a sense of cultural resonance due to familiarity and similarity (Larkey & Hecht, 2010).

Feng-Shui Family depicted stories which most Taiwanese encountered in their daily lives, and the high viewing rate was an evidence of its attractiveness to Taiwanese

audiences. This explorative study took Feng-Shui Family as example, and would like to examine the following questions.