South Africa
Public Health Promotion via Entertainment-Education Graduate Course
Activity Dates
2002 – ongoing
Activity Summary
The Department of Culture, Communication and Media Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal runs a post-graduate course on Public Health Promotion via Entertainment-Education (E-E) and its use in HIV and AIDS responses. The course has increased the body of knowledge on E-E in South Africa and has produced E-E HIV graduates for South Africa and the rest of Africa. It is the only course of its kind in southern Africa and has been completed by a number of high-profile people in the HIV and AIDS world.
Objectives
Increase graduate students’ understanding of key theories of health communication, communication campaigns and Entertainment-Education interventions.
Implementation
Students are taught the concept of Entertainment-Education through lectures given by leading theorists and practitioners affiliated with UKZN Graduate Program in Cultural and Media Studies, CCP, CADRE, and DramAidE using programs such as Beyond Awareness, Mobilizing Young Men to Care, and Africa Alive projects as examples.
Lectures cover areas like public health, health promotion, strategic communication, ethical dilemmas relating to Entertainment-Education, theoretical understanding of behaviour and social change within the health communication paradigm, and participatory approaches in E-E Development. Students obtain a clear understanding of key theories of health communication, communication campaigns, and entertainment-education interventions.
Students are required to set up and implement a research project in order to demonstrate an understanding of the use of E-E for health communication. The 12 weeks of coursework is accompanied by team research projects in which students empirically apply broad approaches to communicating for health promotion, focusing specifically on the role of E-E. The students work with communities to produce projects of real benefit.
The best research projects from each year have been published on the CCMS website, and cross published on Soul Beat. Some are also available on The Communication Initiative site. PhD and MA dissertations are prepared for publication and presented at the annual UKZN Graduate Students’ Conference and other conferences when possible.
Audiences
Graduate students
Partners
CADRE, DramAidE, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communications Programs
Back to South Africa
Note about materials: Some of the materials and resources listed on each page are available in their full form, others are represented by image or citation only. For more information and resources, go to www.jhuccp.org
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