A theoretical agenda for entertainment-education

With the growing number of entertainment-education (E-E) interventions worldwide, and the extensive evaluation research on their impacts, the time is ripe to explore in-depth the theoretical underpinnings of entertainment-education. This introductory article provides a historical background to this special issue of Communication Theory on entertainment-education, and charts a 5-pronged theoretical agenda for future research on entertainment-education. Theoretical investigations of entertainment-education should pay greater attention to the tremendous variability among entertainment-education interventions (Agenda #1) and to the various resistances to entertainment-education interventions (Agenda #2). E-E theorizing will also benefit from close investigations of the rhetorical, play, and affective aspects of E-E (Agenda #3). Further, E-E "effects" research should consider employing a broader understanding of individual, group, and social-level changes (Agenda #4) and be more receptive to methodological pluralism and measurement ingenuity (Agenda #5).