The Entertaining Way to Behavioral Change: Fighting HIV with MTV
Open accessAbstract
This paper tests the effectiveness of an entertainment education television series, MTV Shuga, aimed at providing information and changing attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS. Using a simple model, the paper shows that “edutainment” can work through an individual or a social channel. This study is a randomized controlled trial conducted in urban Nigeria, where young viewers were exposed to MTV Shuga or a placebo television series. Among those exposed to MTV Shuga, the trial created additional variation in the social messages they received and the people with whom they watched the show. The study finds significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes toward HIV and risky sexual behavior. Treated subjects are twice as likely to get tested for HIV eight months after the intervention. The study also finds reductions in sexually transmitted diseases among women. These effects are stronger for viewers who reported being more involved with the narrative, consistent with the psychological underpinnings of edutainment. The trial’s experimental manipulations of the social norm component did not produce significantly different results from the main treatment. The individual effect of edutainment thus seems to have prevailed in the context of this study.
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Participants were also more knowledgeable about HIV: more likely to know about transmission and antiretroviral drugs.
“Participants were also more knowledgeable about HIV: They were more likely to know about its transmission and about antiretroviral drugs.”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Banerjee et al., 2019
The indexed copy’s publication description reports significant improvements in HIV knowledge among young viewers exposed to MTV Shuga. It does not specify improved knowledge of HIV transmission or antiretroviral drugs; searches for those terms found no supporting passage. (LLM, conf=0.81)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn Banerjee et al. (2019), participants in the treatment group were twice as likely to get tested for HIV than the control group.
“Eight months later, participants in the treatment group were twice as likely to get tested for HIV than the control group.”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Banerjee et al., 2019
The likelihood of testing positive for chlamydia fell by 55% among women in the sample.
“However, the likelihood of testing positive for chlamydia fell by 55% among women in the sample.”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Banerjee et al., 2019
The indexed passages contain a repository listing rather than the paper’s results. Searches for “chlamydia” and “55 percent” found no passage in our copy establishing the claimed reduction among women. (LLM, conf=0.70)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe show did not increase self-reported condom use.
“The show did not increase self-reported condom use.”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Banerjee et al., 2019
The supplied passages and searches for “self-reported condom use” and “condom use MTV Shuga intervention self reported no significant effect” yielded no passage from the paper reporting condom-use results. Our copy therefore does not establish whether the show increased self-reported condom use. (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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Cites
The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives.
Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701 · Cited by 4,861 · see citing works
Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences: An Introduction
Imbens, G. W., & Rubin, D. B. (2015) · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139025751 · Cited by 4,210 · see citing works
An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values
Schwartz, S. H. (2012) · Online Readings in Psychology and Culture · doi:10.9707/2307-0919.1116 · Cited by 4,147 · see citing works
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Walsh, J., Vaida, N., Coman, A., & Fiske, S. T. (2022) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1177/15291006231161337 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“The researchers presented the movies in 80 sites across southwest Nigeria.”
BackgroundInfluentialSelection Neglect and Political Beliefs
Brundage, M., Little, A. T., & You, S. (2022) · doi:10.31219/osf.io/p49at · Cited by 7 · see citing works
- Authors
- Banerjee, A., La Ferrara, E., & Orozco-Olvera, V. H.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- ORCID
- Banerjee, Abhijit
- Venue
- World Bank, Washington, DC eBooks
- Publisher
- World Bank, Washington, DC
- Published
- 2019-09
- OpenAlex
- W3093658172
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1
- Type
- report
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- World Bank, Washington, DC eBooks (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (World Bank) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
- Keywords
- edutainment, entertainment-education, HIV prevention, HIV testing, sexual risk behavior, sexually transmitted infections, social norms, youth, Nigeria, narrative engagement
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