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Opportunities and challenges of entertainment-education: Learning about Parkinson’s disease via The Michael J. Fox Show

2017; Equinox Publishing; Volume: 13; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1558/cam.28981

1613-3625

Elena Link, Daniela M. Schluetz, Stephen Brauer,

Media Influence and Health

Health topics are omnipresent in the media. However, although both informational and entertainment formats can increase public understanding of health and illness, media representations of diseases involve challenges as well as opportunities. The entertainment-education (E-E) approach highlights the positive effects of incorporating health messages into entertainment media. The goal of influencing awareness, knowledge and attitudes is reached by transporting the audience into a narrative, which as such enhances persuasive effects and suppresses counterarguing. The NBC sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show (TMJFS) is an E-E format inspired by the actor's own experiences with Parkinson's disease (PD). Using TMJFS as an exemplar, we conducted a multimethodological study to understand both the challenges and the opportunities of E-E comedy formats. A content analysis focusing on the representation of PD in TMJFS showed a focus on motoric symptoms of PD. Subsequent recap analyses and qualitative interviews were conducted to better understand different readings of the show in terms of its informative and entertaining aspects. Additionally, we performed a standardized online survey and an experiment to measure attitudinal effects of TMJFS.