What is edutainment media?

Answer 1

Edutainment

Definitions:-

Ø "The act of learning through a medium that both educates and entertains."

Ø "Educational entertainment is any entertainment content that is designed to educate as well as to amuse."

Ø "Combination of the words education and entertainment. Playful imparting knowledge at the same time great entertainment value."

Introduction:-

Edutainment is one of those combo words, like "infotainment," that combines two regular words into one term that really isn't a word. As you may have guessed, "edutainment" is a combination of education and entertainment. There also exists content that is primarily educational but has incidental entertainment value. Finally, there is content that is mostly entertaining but can be seen to have some educational value. This term is used to describe various forms of entertainment that also educate. Some examples include "Sesame Street," shows on the PTV.

Background:-

The term edutainment was used as early as 1948 by The Walt Disney Company to describe the "True Life Adventures"series. The noun edutainment is used by Robert Heyman in 1973 while producing documentaries for the National Geographic Society. It can be argued that educational entertainment has existed for millennia in the form of parables and stories that promoted social change. Modern forms include television productions, film, museum exhibits, and computer software which uses entertainment to attract and maintain an audience, while incorporating deliberate educational content or messages.

Risks of Edutainment:-

Some people say the whole idea of edutainment is wrong in principle, for it depicts knowledge and learning as something unpleasant that has to be gift-wrapped in entertainment to be manageable, that is not true at all and children can have fun learning. Other risks are the overdose of entertainment i.e. The educational part is not noticed at all or just seen as a part of the game. Parents can think that by giving their children's edutainment products they do with the education of their children. Because it is rather complicated making appealing edutainment products people have to rely on "big" companies fabricating them, who therefor decide what is worth learning and what is not (some sort of filtered reality).

Goal of Edutainment:-

The goal of an edutainment product or experience is to provide some valuable knowledge to the consumer by keeping him or her engaged with entertaining material. People who argue in favor of edutainment suggest that when educational material is presented in a dry way, people tend to tune out, and they do not actually absorb the material or the lesson. For example, people are usually more interested by a brighter colored pamphlet than they are by a single sheet covered in densely written text.

Forms of Edutainment:-

ØBooks

ØPanel games

ØTelevision shows

ØMovies

ØClass activities

ØVideo games

ØRadio

ØPlaythings

ØMuseums

Criticism on edutainment:-

Some educators have suggested that edutainment may cross a line at times. When material is more humorous than it is educational, students can lose out. The focus on providing entertainment foremost is also viewed as complex in some communities, with critics suggesting that people may not be able to focus on less active presentations of material because they have been flooding in edutainment. In other words, some critics think that edutainment has created its own market by training people to look for enjoyment before they seek out knowledge.

Conclusion:-

Technology has made edutainment possible. Learners now learned using multi-sensory and learning has less difficult. Knowledge is transfer to learner in a new way. This is an activity through which not only provides the information but also provide the education according to the need of the audiences. This method helps to learn not only the children but every type of the audiences.

" Entertainment is a media and education is a content"