Making Entertainment Useful (Soap Summit 2003)

During the course of the summit participants heard presentations, engaged in panel discussions, and exchanged information on how entertainment can be used to educate the public. There were also performances of dance, poetry, and puppetry.

The summit focussed not only on issues and messages placed in communication interventions, but also took a critical view of the aesthetic appeal of different art forms. It aimed to be an appreciation of various artistic interventions, such as soap operas, music, cartoons and comics, performing theatre, folk theatre, photography, and painting.

The summit examined various forms of interventions from a number of perspectives, including culture, history, traditional and evolving values, innovations, language, visual images, and art as beauty. It considered the theoretical underpinnings of entertainment as a way of dealing with social issues, programmatic interventions on the continent, and the monitoring and evaluation of programmes. It also reflected on African art forms and the infusion of world cultures into locally produced programmes. Issues discussed included:

• Language, literature, and social change
• Media and health education
• Interventions on HIV/AIDS and the role of culture
• Background for soap operas in Africa
• Storytelling and modeling
• Traditional and new popular cultures
• Language and the arts
• Culture as raw material
• Representation of sexuality in the arts
• Intergenerational communication
• Art and the making of African histories
• Urbanisation and the media
• Media and gender
• Monitoring of media interventions
• Meeting donor expectations
• Regulation of entertainment
• Sustainability of issue-based entertainment

Upon conclusion of the summit, a declaration was drafted that called upon the entertainment-education community to work together to advance issue-based entertainment that is grounded in the diverse cultures of Africa.

Issue-based Entertainment.

Organisers that the forum helped to develop a stronger sense of community among those involved in using entertainment for social change.

The Kenyan summit was part of an ongoing series of Soap Summits that PCI has been hosting over the years. In the past, PCI has worked principally with the soap opera community in encouraging the creative community to consider how to use storytelling to change attitudes and behaviour on health and social issues. In 2003, PCI widened the scope of the summit to include a much larger spectrum of creative teams who can use their talents for social change. Organisers explain that the success of the previous American soap summits has inspired an international agenda. In March 2004 PCI will present the first India Soap Summit. Because the model has grown to include players from beyond the government and the international NGO community, this year's audience will include communication professionals from a wide spectrum of industries and will look beyond soap operas and into the future possibilities of using mass communication for social change.