Toward a Theory of Entertainment Persuasion: Explaining the Persuasive Effects of Entertainment-Education Messages

TLDR

A growing body of research indicates that entertainment‑education programming can effectively deliver prosocial and health messages, may outperform overt persuasion in some contexts, yet its unique message‑processing mechanisms remain incompletely understood. The article sets out three objectives: to clarify key concepts, synthesize relevant theory, and propose an expanded framework for entertainment‑education message effects. It examines narrative involvement, separates constructs such as identification and parasocial interaction, reviews existing theories, and builds an expanded theoretical framework with propositions and future research directions. The article clarifies concepts, synthesizes theory, and offers propositions to guide future research on entertainment‑education message effects.

Abstract

A growing body of research indicates that entertainment-education programming can be an effective way to deliver prosocial and health messages. Some have even speculated that entertainment-education may be more effective than overtly persuasive messages in certain circumstances. Despite empirical advances in this area, more work is needed to understand fully what makes entertainment-education unique from a message-processing standpoint. To this end, the present article has three objectives. First, the article examines the involvement with narrative storylines and characters that is fostered by entertainment programming. This includes a much-needed explication and separation of several related constructs, such as identification, parasocial interaction, similarity, and others. Second, the article reviews and synthesizes existing theories that have addressed entertainment-education message processing. Third, the article builds on these theories, presenting an expanded theoretical framework. A set of propositions is advanced and directions for future research are discussed. In total, the article offers a clarification of existing concepts that are critical to the study of entertainment-education, a synthesis of relevant theory, and a set of propositions to guide future research in entertainment-education message effects.