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Television as educator

The Kaiser Foundation reports the results of an interesting experiment.

In order to document how well viewers learn health information from entertainment television, the Foundation worked with writers at Grey’s Anatomy to embed a health message in an episode, and then surveyed viewers on the topic before and after the episode aired. The storyline involved an HIV positive pregnant woman who learns that with the proper treatment, she has a 98% chance of having a healthy baby. The study found that the audience’s awareness of this information increased by 46 percentage points (from 15% to 61%), a four-fold increase among all viewers. This translates to more than eight million people learning correct information about mother-to-child HIV transmission rates from watching the episode.

If only the West Wing were still shooting new episodes, so that some enterprising political scientist could persuade the scriptwriters to try something similar …

Posted by Henry on September 16, 2008 01:59 PM |

Comments

Yeah, like “the President is not an elective dictator.” :)

Posted by: arbitrista | September 16, 2008 03:30 PM

As encouraging is this is, I’m very skeptical that this effect will stick over time. I’d bet that if they did a second wave, say, a month later, that 61% figure would be cut significantly.

Posted by: Jeff | September 16, 2008 08:08 PM

This is actually very worrying: how much FALSE data is disseminated by shows like Grey’s Anatomy or House? Do all those people believe EVERYTHING they hear on TV?

Posted by: Dubi Kanengisser | September 16, 2008 08:23 PM

But what moral or ethical message about government gets embeded? Vote? Participate in community meetings? Unfortunately, no matter what, the message would end up being political (although I wouldn’t have minded an episode about signing statements and their constitutionality).

I’m sure the message would fade a bit, but for those that are targeted (especially those that are HIV-positive), the message would resonate much longer.

Posted by: Tim Knudson [TypeKey Profile Page] | September 17, 2008 10:22 AM