The Impact of Social Change Communication: Lessons Learned from Decades of Media Outreach

Abstract

This chapter will cover the use of entertainment serialized dramas for social change in Ethiopia. Population Media Center (PMC) is an organization that uses entertainment media to change lives by creating long-running serialized dramas in which characters evolve into role models for the audience on social, health, and human rights issues. The chapter will summarize radio serial dramas produced and distributed nationwide on Radio Ethiopia, as well as the impact they’ve had on audience knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. These include a tripling of self-reported family planning use among married women who were listening to the first program and a quadrupling of HIV testing among male listeners—all in a two-year period. Since almost half of Ethiopia’s population was listening to each program, the impacts have been measurable on a national basis. Similar programs have been carried out in over 50 countries with profound effects on social norms.