Abstract
Theoretical debates and literature on E-E efforts in Africa have largely focussed on understanding how and why interventions on HIV and AIDS are effective in influencing behaviour change among target communities. Very few studies have sought to investigate and understand why a substantial number of targeted audiences resist the preferred readings that are encoded into E-E interventions on HIV and AIDS. Using cultural studies as its conceptual framework and reception analysis as its methodology, this study investigated and accounted for the oppositional readings that subaltern black South African youths negotiate from Tsha Tsha, an E-E television drama on HIV and AIDS in South Africa. Results from the study show that HIV and AIDS messages in Tsha Tsha face substantial resistances from situated youth viewers whose social contexts of consumption, shared identities, quotidian experiences and subjectivities, provide critical lines along which the E-E text is often resisted and inflected. These findings do not only hold several implications for E-E practice and research, they further reflect the utility of articulating cultural studies and reception analysis into a more nuanced theoretical and methodological framework for evaluating the ‘impact’ of E-E interventions on HIV and AIDS.
Highlights
The E-E strategy, conceptualised as the strategic placement of educational content in entertainment education, has gained currency in contemporary health communication praxis and scholarship (Govender, 2013; Obregon & Tufte, 2013)
What the audience resistances to HIV and AIDS issues in Tsha Tsha show is that context is central in audiences’ consumption of EE texts as ‘it determines the meaning, transformations or salience of a particular subjective form as much as the form itself’ (Johnson, 1986, p. 67)
The evidence of substantial resistances in the negotiation of HIV and AIDS messages in Tsha Tsha by subaltern black South African youths in the study reinforce findings from previous studies which show that E-E texts like any other media texts, face substantial resistances in subaltern discursive spaces
Summary
The E-E strategy, conceptualised as the strategic placement of educational content in entertainment education, has gained currency in contemporary health communication praxis and scholarship (Govender, 2013; Obregon & Tufte, 2013). The success of E-E campaigns as a vehicle for addressing development issues has led to the growth in the theoretical treatment and evaluation of the strategy in academic literature (Singhal, 2013). Very few studies have sought to investigate and understand why a substantial number of targeted audiences resist the preferred readings that are encoded into E-E interventions. In light of this context, scholars such as Singhal and Rogers (2002) and Dutta (2006) have argued for the need by E-E and health communication researchers to pay attention to the substantial resistances that E-E interventions face in subaltern discursive spaces
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
