To explain attitudinal and behavioral change
associated with EE projects, scholars have drawn
on traditional behavior change theories from the
discipline of psychology. Bandura’s Social
Cognitive Theory has been used as a starting point
for those theorizing about the field. Bandura says
that “by observing the performance of actors,
audience members can experience strong emo-
tional reactions, acquire new thought patterns
and values and change their behavior...especially
if the models exhibit new patterns of thought
and behavior which is rewarded...” (1985).
However, according to panelist Larry Kincaid
(USA), there are limitations to Bandura’s work.
Change Characters to Change Audience
Behavior
Presenting a paper titled “Convergence Theory
of the Effects of Observational Learning from a
Serial Drama,” Kincaid pointed out that social
dramas normally consist of many different char-
acters, each of which models different, often con-
tradictory, behavior and values. Processes of
selective attention, selective perception, and
selective recall imply that many audience mem-
bers will simply have their existing patterns of
thought and behavior reinforced by their pre-
ferred characters.
The convergence theory of communication
is based on the theorem that over time, beliefs
and behavior of individuals who share the same
information will converge toward a state of
greater cultural uniformity. However, the infor-
mation to which individuals are exposed is
bounded by their communication networks and
by selective exposure and perception. This theory
is thus more useful to explain why behavior has
changed after a campaign.
Furthermore, multiple models and unclear
boundary conditions make it difficult or impos-
sible to predict in advance which members and
how many members of an audience will change
their behavior, said Kincaid. He noted that one
way to overcome these limitations is to deter-
mine which characters in the drama different
members will identify with. This is based on the
theory of psychological identification which
offers a way to identify which audience members
will be affected by which characters in a drama,
thus offering script writers clues for developing
plots for maximum impact.
Kincaid used the Nepalese serial radio drama
Cut Your Coat According to Your Cloth as an
example of how the theory could be tested. His
example demonstrated how the measurement of
cognitive image, i.e., the association between
characters and attributes, could be used to study
the impact of a drama on the audience. Using
multidimensional scaling (MDS), it is possible to
show audience’s perceived similarity of charac-
ters, measurement of beliefs, value of attributes,
identification with each character, and emotional
empathy with characters. He concluded that
methods for measuring cognitive image by means
of classical MDS are capable of capturing the
main elements of identification, observational
learning, and the cognitive and cultural conver-
gence of audience members.
ENTERTAINMENT-EDUCATION CONFERENCE 2000
14
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Research Panel: “Challenges in Entertainment-Education Theory”
EEtextFinal(64pgs).-gtb 13-07-2001 10:36 Pagina 14
