Assessment of Radio Drama as an Entertainment-Education Tool in Bauchi State

This study assesses the effectiveness of radio drama as an entertainment-education communication tool for promoting health and social development messages in Bauchi State, North East Nigeria. Entertainment-education, the deliberate incorporation of educational content into entertaining media formats, has been shown to be highly effective in behaviour change communication, particularly in settings where literacy rates are low and broadcast media access is high. Bauchi State's predominantly rural, radio-listening population makes it an important context for evaluating this approach. This study uses a quasi-experimental pre-post design, measuring health knowledge and attitude change among 240 regular listeners to a health-focused radio drama series broadcast on Bauchi State Radio Corporation compared to 240 non-listener controls in Alkaleri, Tafawa Balewa, and Ningi local government areas. The drama series, produced in Hausa, addresses family planning, maternal nutrition, and childhood immunisation. Knowledge, attitude, and self-reported behaviour measures are taken before and after a 12-week listening period. Findings reveal significant improvements in health knowledge scores among listeners (pre-test mean 54 percent; post-test mean 72 percent), compared to negligible change in the control group. Attitude toward family planning shows positive movement in the listener group. Narrative transportation, the degree to which listeners are emotionally absorbed in the drama narrative, is strongly associated with magnitude of attitude change. The study concludes that radio drama is a highly effective entertainment-education vehicle in Bauchi State. It recommends expanded production of Hausa-language health entertainment-education content by Bauchi State Broadcasting Corporation.

Keywords: radio drama, entertainment-education, health communication, Bauchi State, behaviour change.