"Entertainment education (“edutainment”) is a communication strategy that works through mass entertainment media with the aim of promoting a better context for behavior change than the delivery of information alone. We experimentally evaluate season 3 of the edutainment TV series MTV Shuga, prod ... uced by MTV Staying Alive Foundation and filmed in Nigeria. Shuga 3 consists of eight episodes of 22 minutes each. While the main focus of the series is HIV, a subplot involves a married couple with a violent husband. In this paper we focus on this theme and assess the impact of Shuga on attitudes toward domestic violence. We find broadly positive effects. Moreover, the effect seems to be concentrated among people who recall the show and the narrative around the characters well, consistent with the idea of edutainment. We contribute to the nonexperimental literature on the impact of commercial TV on gender outcomes (e.g., Chong and La Ferrara 2009; Jensen and Oster 2009; La Ferrara, Chong, and Duryea 2012; Kearney and Levine 2015) and to recent experimental work that uses edutainment for public policy (e.g., Banerjee, Barnhardt, and Duflo 2015; Ravallion et al. 2015; Berg and Zia 2017). We differ from the latter in focusing on changing norms toward gender based violence." more

"This paper tests the effectiveness of an entertainment education television series, MTV Shuga, aimed at providing information and changing attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS. Using a simple model, the paper shows that “edutainment” can work through an individual or a social channel. Th ... is study is a randomized controlled trial conducted in urban Nigeria, where young viewers were exposed to MTV Shuga or a placebo television series. Among those exposed to MTV Shuga, the trial created additional variation in the social messages they received and the people with whom they watched the show. The study finds significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes toward HIV and risky sexual behavior. Treated subjects are twice as likely to get tested for HIV eight months after the intervention. The study also finds reductions in sexually transmitted diseases among women. These effects are stronger for viewers who reported being more involved with the narrative, consistent with the psychological underpinnings of edutainment." (Abstract) more