Impactful Media: How TV Is Shifting the Global Landscape for Good
My TamFrom expanding awareness of global health issues in the United States, and implementing health education in Haiti, to addressing tribal conflict in Kenya, and changing…
From expanding awareness of global health issues in the United States, and implementing health education in Haiti, to addressing tribal conflict in Kenya, and changing the perception of Turkey in the Middle East, soap operas, television and videos are helping to save the planet.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently invested over $1.37 million in the Hollywood Health and Society Global Health Initiative, a project of The Norman Lear Center, in partnership with the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund. HH&S works to increase global entertainment-education efforts for United States television programming:
The grant enables HH&S to work to increase U.S. public support for global initiatives that reduce health disparities and disease around the world. The main goals of this effort include increasing the accurate presentation of global health topics, such as HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and vaccine-preventable diseases in popular primetime TV shows; and increasing understanding and support among TV viewers of global health programs that can save lives and reduce disease, especially in Africa.
A new UN funded soap opera, “Under the Sky,” is one example of a TV show that is targeting global health; in this case in post-earthquake Haiti. The show will feature 16 episodes, aired three nights a week in 16 camps, and is intended to inform Haitians on how to improve security, sanitation and hygiene in their tent cities. (via Global Poverty and The New York Times)
In Kenya and 12 other countries, The Search for Common Ground produces “The Team,” a TV show utilizing the relationships and political dynamics of soccer teams to portray the transformation of conflict into cooperative action. “The Team” targets countries traditionally wracked by conflict and shows positive role models taking responsibility for their actions, which, it is hoped, will increase tolerance, cooperation and national unity in viewers. Encouraging dialogue instead of violence, Common Ground also provides public screenings with moderated discussions in rural areas where TV is not accessible. (For more, see NOW on PBS.)
Countries like Turkey, are also utilizing soap operas as a social diplomacy tool. to shift perceptions of its country in the Middle East. “Gumus,” or Noor in Arabic, is a Turkish soap opera that is successfully shifting perceptions of its country in the Middle East. 80 million viewers, from Morocco to Palestine, watched its final episode. Its success likely lies in its dramatic stories told from a Muslim point-of-view; per an article in Foreign Policy:
The idea of watching Muslim men and woman who share the same values and cultural background with their brethren in the Middle East is a very appealing one because it raises taboo subjects and challenges conservative values by someone from within, as opposed to an outsider.The Turkish soaps have been daring and candid when it comes to gender equality, premarital sex, infidelity, passionate love, and even children born out of wedlock. Coming from a Muslim country like Turkey (even one imbued with a strong secular identity) made it easy to penetrate the thick walls of conservatism in the Arab world where bigotry and misogyny often masquerade as “moral” or “ethical” issues.
As a result of the popular soaps (which by the way are watched not only by women but entire households), Turkey has carved out a strong place for itself on the Arab street.
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The broader impact of the story is that a simple television production can be utilized as a potent social tool to effect change and influence thinking — and in the process win a few million hearts and minds.
The Population Media Center also utilizes media to affect social change, specifically around issues of sustainability and population. The PMC has programming worldwide, and advertises the success of their Brazilian programming:
From September 2006 to March 2007, TV Globo broadcast the highly popular program Páginas da Vida (“Pages of Life”)…It was highly entertaining, yet able to raise many important questions throughout Brazil concerning social and reproductive health issues…At the conclusion of this particular program, multiple quantitative and qualitative studies assessed the impact of Páginas da Vida…Some highlights of these results include:
• Among viewers interviewed at BEMFAM family planning clinics, 60% of clients age 18-24 said that scenes in Páginas da Vida served as a stimulus for them to seek a health service.
• There was more than a 50% increase in knowledge among women interviewed with regard to various reproductive health issues such as: contraceptive methods, family planning, maternal health, maternity/paternity, unwanted pregnancy, adolescent pregnancy, and HIV/AIDS
From sports to global health, captivating and engaging storytelling conveyed through accessible and portable media has the power to create social change. Bill Ryerson, the founder of the PMC, says that not only are media solutions more cost effective (“For example, in the Tanzania project we were just talking about, the cost per person who adopted family planning was 32 cents. The cost per person to change behavior to avoid HIV infection was 8 cents. When you can save lives at 8 cents a person, it is worth doing something.”), they’re also more lasting. For example, when a soap opera character on PMC’s Tanzania show, was shown dying of AIDS over a two year period, resulting studies indicated the story had a lingering impact on viewers:
when he started dying from AIDS, which he did during the serial, there was a massive self-reported change in behavior. Of the audience members, 82 percent of them in a survey at the end of the two years said they had changed their behavior to avoid HIV infection. The most common change they said they had made was reduction in the number of sexual partners. The second most common change was condom use.
All of the projects above have the ambitious and worthy goal of influencing viewers around the world to shift their behaviors into collective impacts that create a healthier and more sustainable world.
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(Posted by My Tam in Media at 10:30 AM)
Google the Moon…Again!
WorldChanging TeamLooking back five years ago today on Worldchanging: 2005 Google the Moon Jamais Cascio shares a fun link for the Google Map of the Moon…
Looking back five years ago today on Worldchanging:
2005
Google the Moon
Jamais Cascio shares a fun link for the Google Map of the Moon that shows the section of the moon the Apollo astronauts landed on in the 1960s and 1970s…
Other recent “look backs”:
July 15
July 16
July 19
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Emerging Technologies at 10:00 AM)
Renewable Power Investments Outstrip Fossil Fuels in Europe and U.S.
Yale Environment 360The U.S. and Europe added more power capacity in 2009 from renewable sources than from conventional sources such as coal and oil, and this year…
The U.S. and Europe added more power capacity in 2009 from renewable sources than from conventional sources such as coal and oil, and this year or next the world as a whole will add more capacity to the electricity supply from alternative energy sources than from fossil fuels, according to two new reports. The reports, issued by the United Nations Environmental Program and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, said that in 2009 renewables made up 60 percent of newly installed power capacity in Europe and more than 50 percent in the U.S. Although global investment in green energy decreased in 2009, to $162 billion, some countries, such as China, saw rapid growth; private and public investment in clean energy in China jumped 53 percent in 2009, with the country adding 37 gigawatts of renewable power capacity — nearly half of the 80 gigawatts of renewable power capacity added worldwide last year. China surpassed the U.S. in 2009 as the country with the largest investment in clean energy. Worldwide, investments in solar power and biofuels declined in 2009, but there was record investment in wind power, totaling $67 billion, the reports said. The reports also said the number of countries with policies encouraging green energy investment has doubled in the past five years, from 55 to more than 100.
This post originally appeared on e360 digest.
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(Posted by Yale Environment 360 in Energy at 9:30 AM)
TED Global 2010: Stefan Wolff and Learning Lessons to Stop Ethnic Conflict
Ethan Zuckerman Stefan Wolff is a scholar of ethnic conflicts and civil war. He tells us that, while there’s seldom good news when we talk about…
Stefan Wolff is a scholar of ethnic conflicts and civil war. He tells us that, while there’s seldom good news when we talk about these topics, there are reasons for hope. Specifically, he’s hopeful about three factors: leadership, diplomacy and institutional design.
There are certainly reasons to worry about ongoing civil war. Wolff reminds us of recent civil conflicts in Georgia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Israel and Palestine, Darfur and Iraq. But there’s good news as well. In the long term, there’s been an overall decline in the number of civil wars, and we’re seeing roughly half as many as there were in the 1990s, with fifty civil wars. Death rates are lower from combat casualties, though the trend is less unambiguous. And there’s a decrease of 2/3rds in civilian casualties, which is great, but those statistics don’t consider the tragically common other effects of conflict on civilians – torture, rape and maiming.
So why is the situation getting better? Sometimes there’s a military victory, like with the victory of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. But these rarely show up as resounding successes. Wolff tells us an African colleague once told him, “The ceasefire on Tuesday night was reached just in time for the genocide to start on Wednesday morning.”
Looking at success stories might help us. The Northern Ireland peace process mediated by Senator Mitchell was a resounding success and has led to lasting peace in Northern Ireland. There were very clear conditions for participation in negotiation – a firm commitment to exclusively peaceful means. Agreements were innovative and let all parties see their core concerns addressed. People built cross-border institutions that link Belfast and Dublin and acknowledge Irish dimension of the conflict. There was an acknowledgment of rights of individuals and groups, and local leaders rose to the challenge of compromise.
This isn’t the only success – stopping the civil war in Liberia, preventing civil war in Macedonia, and ending the conflict in Aceh – in each case, institutions have stood up to the promise of making peace instead of sustaining conflict.
Why didn’t Oslo work as a process for peace in Israel and Palestine? The process didn’t include enough of the issues – instead, it left them to local leaders, who soon disengaged, became distracted. The Southern Sudan peace process wasn’t comprehensive enough, and may lead to resumption of conflict.
In Kosovo, failure of a negotiated solution led to de facto partition. Here we should probably blame the intransigence of local leaders, and the failure to settle for less than full demands. Western support for Kosovar independents probably didn’t help either, and the failure to build institutions to address concerns of Serbs and Albanians alike contributed.
Even when situations less than optimal, Wolff tells us, leaders have a choice and can make a difference for the better. A cold peace is better than a hot war for everyone involved. But these sorts of solutions don’t happen automatically. Leadership has to be capable, determined, visionary. Leaders need to connect to each other and to followers, so they can bring them along on a long and arduous journey.
Diplomacy must be well resourced, sustained, and a use a mix of pressures. It needs to push for equitable compromise, and involve a broad coalition of local, regional and international supporters.
Institutional design should focus on issues, innovative thinking, and be supported by well-funded implementation.
Parties involved need to move away from maximum demands, towards compromise. And we all need to invest in developing leaders who have the skills, vision, determination to make peace so that “the child soldiers of today can become the children of tomorrow.”
This post originally appeared on Ethan’s excellent blog My Heart’s in Accra.
Image of Stefan Wolff via his website.
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(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Nonviolence at 1:00 PM)
