Concerns With Entertainment-Education: Zombie Pandemic Preparedness and the Unanticipated Promotion of a Weapons Culture

Abstract

Entertainment-education has proved to be an engaging medium through which to explore health and social issues in populations. Given the popularity of the zombie theme in popular culture it is no surprise therefore that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopted this theme in an effort to engage youth and young adults in emergency preparedness. However, an earlier observational study involving elementary school children based on this premise raised concerns that it may have unexpectedly promoted a focus on firearms. A randomized control study involving 89 children (average age 10.4 years) was therefore conducted to explore this possibility in more depth. One group was exposed to a natural disaster scenario, while the other group was exposed to the zombie pandemic theme. When subsequently asked to prepare emergency kit lists, participants in the zombie themed scenario were 15.84 times as likely to include firearms in their lists compared with participants who were exposed to the natural disaster scenario. Although the sample size in this study was small, it is suggested that future interventions using entertainment-education need to explore all aspects of the messages implicit in their chosen medium, rather than just focusing on one element.

The Value of Media Studies Approaches for the Evaluation of Entertainment Education: A Case Study of East Los High

“…Exploring the latent meaning of the media text, particularly within the context of its production, can reveal ways in which characters or the narrative may affect the convergence of the text encoding and audience decoding, either promoting or hindering effective health communication. Unanticipated consequences of EE approaches to health education due to character portrayals, narratives, and genre have also been reported in other EE studies (Houghton et al, 2017; Tully & Ekdale, 2014). For example, a zombie-based narrative created to promote emergency preparedness unintentionally promoted a focus on firearms (Houghton et al, 2017).…”

“…Unanticipated consequences of EE approaches to health education due to character portrayals, narratives, and genre have also been reported in other EE studies (Houghton et al, 2017; Tully & Ekdale, 2014). For example, a zombie-based narrative created to promote emergency preparedness unintentionally promoted a focus on firearms (Houghton et al, 2017). In this context, textual analysis can identify which images, characters, narratives, or how the zombie genre itself may have implicitly promoted the use of firearms.…”

“…In this context, textual analysis can identify which images, characters, narratives, or how the zombie genre itself may have implicitly promoted the use of firearms. Collectively, these studies call for methods that can explore all aspects of the messages implicit in the medium chosen in EE-based interventions (Houghton et al, 2017).…”

Likes, comments, action! An examination of the Facebook audience engagement strategies used by strategic impact documentary

“…Emotive storylines can also guide behaviour (Dillard and Meijinders, 2002) through a gateway effect (Borum Chattoo and Feldman, 2017). In this way, entertaining or positive documentary narratives can lead to audiences trusting the media message more (Borum Chattoo and Feldman, 2017; Campolo, 2012), while negative documentary narratives can lead to heightened inclinations to discuss issues (Landreville and LaMarre, 2011) and narratives with fearful messages can lead to increased levels of paranoia (Houghton et al, 2017).…”

Medicine in the Antibiotic Apocalypse

“…A previous publication suggested the use of graphic novels could enhance understanding of material ( 5 ). The Centers for Disease Control recently released a zombie graphic novel to raise awareness of disaster preparedness, but at least one study suggested it did not work as hoped ( 6 ) and could even backfire in some aspects ( 7 ). Whether Surgeon X will appeal to the masses is uncertain, but I recommend it as a useful addition to a Biology instructor’s repertoire as a novel way to consider issues regarding the potential post-antibiotic future.…”