How Entertainment Education and Narrative can impact ones Health

By: Jacob Martinez

As we begin to see an increase in mobile devices, the promotion of health through text messages will increase. Health providers are finding new ways to strategically spread information to patients through their phones. However, health professionals have done research about ways to spread information through entertainment.

The article that I read this week was “Assessing the Potential Use of Narrative and the Entertainment Education Strategy In an mHealth Text-Message Intervention.” In this article, they explain how much influence entertainment education and the use of narrative has on peoples knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, and even attitudes. The social cognitive theory (SCT) explains how it is easily applied to entertainment education as it can affects ones direct learning. SCT explains that a person can learn from others, simply by watching the behavior of them. I think that this is a big theory in relation to entertainment education since health professionals are trying to relay information through text messages. In 2003, it was found that the younger generation became more aware about condoms and how important they are when they were exposed to a video, explaining the failure rates of the use of condoms with young adults.

Today, a ton of schools nationwide require students to take a health class that portray these types of narratives. Students are required to learn the importance of having safe sex and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. As schools began to show these types of programs, there has been an increase in safe sex and the use of condoms, and we began to see a decrease in unwanted pregnancies.

However, while the entertainment education and narrative has a major impact on educating young adults about safe sex, it also educates younger people about the dangers of alcohol. In one study, college students were exposed “to an episode of the TV show ER containing anti-alcohol messages had less positive attitudes and lower behavioral intentions to binge drink than participants who did not see the message (Kim, Lee, & Macias, 2014).” After viewing this type of message, there was a slight decrease in binge drinking for those who saw the narrative. Whereas those who did not view the message, did not have any behavioral change.

As we learned a lot on how much entertainment education and narrative can impact Health promotion, we also have to view it from a mobile media perspective. “While entertainment education and the use of narrative have been found useful for influencing health behavior change, little research has applied entertainment education to mobile interventions, particularly in the United States.” I believe that there could been more research done to understand how big of an impact entertainment education can have on mobile interventions. Today, most health professionals are offering help online through video chats when patients are unable to attend doctors visits in person. Along with that, we receive text messages from our health providers when there may have been a change, or even when we have upcoming appointments. Overall, I believe there could be more information explained through mobile devices from entertainment education and narrative viewpoints.