Effective social-change media are co-created with host communities and iteratively revised from audience feedback

Evidence

The serial dramas are not social programs foisted on nations by outsiders pursuing their own interests. They are created only by invitation from countries seeking help with intractable problems. Population Media Center works in partnership with media personnel in the host countries to create serial dramas tailored to their cultures and addressing their particular needs. The host production team draws on a wide variety of sources, including public health systems, religious organizations, women’s groups, and other constituencies to identify unique life conditions, social practices, and prevailing values. This information helps them to identify the types of changes the dramatizations should address and provides culturally relevant information for developing realistic characters and engrossing, functional story lines. Once a program is aired, producers monitor how listeners or viewers perceive the characters, which ones they identify with, how they view the obstacles and the dramatized options, and what types of futures they envision. Scripts are amended on the basis of this feedback. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2818

Categorization

• XREF: The iterative feedback-and-revise loop recalls entertainment-education methodology studied in communication-for-social-change literature, and the co-creation model parallels participatory action research. — connects to: Commercial culture can be repurposed for active face-to-face community — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 916