Promoting Health in the Entertainment Format? How Minors Perceive and Evaluate Health-related Messages in TV Entertainment
Health topics gain in significance in teenage years: physical and psychic changes come about and the first experiences are made with narcotics. Young people are often difficult to reach with health-promoting or preventative messages, as they seek health information for themselves only comparatively rarely – unless they are directly or indirectly affected by a topic. Communication strategies specific to target groups are needed, which take account of the interest in the topic, the need for information as well as habits of media use.
In the USA, Entertainment-Education was already developed at the end of the 1960’s as a concept, which exploited the attractiveness of entertainment offerings, in order to sensitise difficult-to-access target groups to topics related to health, among other things. To do this, a message promoting health and integrated into an attractive offering in the media or a specialised offer is deliberately developed on the basis of the Entertainment-Education concept. Various studies testify to the concept’s effectiveness to the extent that it could be shown that these pedagogically motivated offers could contribute to sensitising people to the topics and in a few cases to a change in attitude or behaviour as well. At the same time, however, comparatively little attention was paid to the placing of specifically directed media messages in a heterogeneous, partially contradictory programme environment (for example, advertising for alcohol, sweets [candy] etc.) and also to the competition with other socialising influences.
In the context of a qualitative study, the question was, therefore, investigated as to whether and in what way young people do notice health-related messages at all in fictional programmes in the context of their general use of the media and how they evaluate them. The results show that health-related fictional offers certainly leave traces and can contribute to sensitising people to health-related topics, but they also point to the limits of the Entertainment-Education initiative.
Publications
Lampert, C. (2011): Entertainment-Education. Orientierung und Wertevermittlung durch Medien [Entertainmen-Education. Orientation and Value Transfer through Media]. In: Die Demokratische Schule, Mai 2011, pp. 5-6.
Lampert, C. (2010): Entertainment-Education als Strategie für die Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung [Entertainment-Education as Strategy for Prevention and Health Promotion]. In: Public Health Forum, 18, No. 68, pp. 20-22..
Lampert, C. (2010): Gesundheitsförderung im Unterhaltungsprogramm - Entertainment-Education als Kommunikationsstrategie [Health Promotion in the Entertainment Programme - Entertainment-Education as Communication Strategy]. In: impu!se - Newsletter zur Gesundheitsförderung, 69, pp. 7-8.
Lampert, C.; Schwinge, C.; Tolks, D. (2009): Der gespielte Ernst des Lebens: Bestandsaufnahme und Potenziale von Serious Games (for Health) [Playing Life Seriously: Inventory and Potential of Serious Games (for Health)]. In: MedienPädagogik. Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung (Themenheft 15/16: Computerspiele und Videogames in formellen und informellen Bildungskontexten) [Media Education. Magazine for Theory and Practice of Media Education (Issue 15/16: Computer Games and Video Games in Formal and Informal Contexts of Education] (pdf-file).
Lampert, C. (2007): Unterhaltsam und informativ – zum Potenzial der Medien für die Gesundheitsförderung [Entertaining and Informative –on the Potential of the Media for Promoting Health]. In: M. Große-Loheide, N. Neuss (Eds.), Körper, Kult, Medien. Inszenierungen im Alltag und in der Medienbildung, pp. 28-133.
Lampert, C. (2007): Gesundheitsförderung im Unterhaltungsformat. Wie Jugendliche gesundheitsbezogene Darstellungen in fiktionalen Fernsehangeboten wahrnehmen und bewerten [Health Promotion in Entertainment Media. How Young People Perceive and Evaluate Health Messages in Fictional TV Offerings]. Baden Baden.
Lampert, C. (2005): Gezielte Lebenshilfe durch Entertainment-Education? [Targeted Assistance with Living by Entertainment-Education?]. In: medien + erziehung, Vol. 49, No. 5, pp. 33-37.
Lampert, C. (2003): Gesundheitsförderung durch Unterhaltung? Zum Potenzial des Entertainment-Education-Ansatzes für die Förderung des Gesundheitsbewusstseins [Health Promotion by Entertainment? On the Potential of the Entertainment-Education Inititiatve for the Promotion of Health Consciousness]. In: Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, Vol. 51, No. 3-4, pp. 461-477 (go to contents, in german only).
Events
"Aufklärung im Unterhaltungsformat? Zur Rezeption von Botschaften zur Organspende im fiktionalen Fernsehprogramm" [Information in an Entertainment Format? On the Reception of Messages on Organ Donation in Fictional TV Programmes], lecture by C. Lampert at the expert conference "Aufklärung zur Organ- und Gewebespende in Deutschland. Neue Wege der Gesundheitskommunikation" [Informing in Organ and Tissue Donation in Germany. New Ways of Health Communication] of the Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA) in Cologne on 6 October 2010.
Lectures
"Gesundheitsförderung im Unterhaltungsformat" [Health Promotion in Entertainment Format], lecture by C. Lampert at the conference "Kommunikationsmaßnahmen für medizinische Forschungsnetzwerke entwickeln" [Developing Communication Activities for Medical Research Networks] of TMF - Technology, Methods, and Infrastructure for Networked Medical Research in Berlin on 14 April 2011.
"Aufklärung im Unterhaltungsformat? Zur Rezeption von Botschaften zur Organspende im fiktionalen Fernsehprogramm" [Enlightenment through Entertainment? On the Reception of Messages on Organ Donation in Fictional TV Programme], lecture by C. Lampert at the BZgA conference "Aufklärung zur Organ- und Gewebespende in Deutschland. Neue Wege der Kommunikation" [Education on Organ and Tissue Donation in Germany. New Ways of Communication] in Cologne on 6 October 2010.
"Gesund gespielt? Bestandsaufnahme und Potenziale von Serious Games for Family-Health" [Healthy Play? Inventory and Potentials of Serious Games for Family-Health], lecture by C. Lampert at the faculty colloquium "Familie und Gesundheit. Gesundheit in und mit Familien kommunizieren" [Family and Health. Communicating Health in and with Families.] at the University of Bielefeld on 22 April 2010.
"Erreichbarkeit von HIV-Patienten über die verschiedenen Medien bzw. der Nutzen dieser Medien für die Prävention" [Attainability of HIV Patients through Different Media or the Use of Media for Prevention], lecture by C. Lampert at the 3rd workshop of the medical association Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on the subject "HIV-Prävention - Die 'Unwissentlich HIV-Infizierten' und die damit verbundenen Risiken" [HIV-Prevention - The "Unknowingly HIV-Infected" and the Associated Risks] in Rostock on 5 December 2009.
"Entertainment-Education Theory and Research: An Overview", lecture by C. Lampert at the ICA-conference in Dresden on 20 June 2006.
“Zwischen Information und Entertainment – Suchtprävention in und mit Medien” [Between Information and Entertainment – Preventing Addiction in and with the Media], keynote address by C. Lampert in the context of the annual meeting of the specialist committee on preventing addiction on 7 September 2005 in Hamburg.
“Gesundheitskommunikation durch Entertainment Education. Zur Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von gesundheitsrelevanten Botschaften im Kontext von Unterhaltungsangeboten” [Health Communication through Entertainment Education. On the Perception and Evaluation of Messages relevant to Health in the Context of Entertainment Offerings], lecture by C. Lampert in the context of the specialist conference “Media and Health Communication” on 24 and 25 October 2003 in Loccum.
Contact person
Hans-Bredow-Institut
Dependance
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