Entertainment-education serials can shift viewers’ attitudes toward gender equality

Evidence

Hum Log was immensely popular, enjoying top ratings on television and eliciting hundreds of thousands of letters from viewers offering advice and support to the characters. A random sample of viewers reported that they had learned from the serial that women should have equal opportunities and a say in decisions that affect their lives, that programs advancing the welfare of women should be encouraged, that cultural diversity should be respected, and that family size should be limited. In India and elsewhere, the more aware viewers were of the messages being modeled, the greater was their support of women’s freedom of choice in matters that affect them and of planning for small families (Brown & Cody, 1991; Rogers et al., 1999). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2906 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

This is by no means an uncomplicated undertaking, for Rushdie is not, in the way Orwell always was, a misogynist plain and simple. Living in the contemporary milieu of the British Left, he has not remained untouched by certain kinds of feminism; and he is clearly aware, and quite capable of effective narrativization, of many kinds of women’s oppression in our societies. The complication is of a different order, and politically far more devastating than mere lack of sympathy. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 570 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Entertainment-education radio serials can measurably change reproductive behavior; Entertainment-education serials can change real audiences’ behavior at massive scale — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2832; Entertainment serials durably change social behavior across diverse global cultures — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2911 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Viewers who recognized a drama’s modeled messages showed more support for women’s rights #corroborates (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2906
• Diverse human portrayals on television may still fail against entrenched prejudice #complicates (0.80)
• Mere sympathy and narrativization skill can coexist with politically devastating gender politics #complicates (0.74) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 570
• Merely reading gender stereotypes boosts support for the status quo #complicates (0.72)