Pukallus, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-5011-7210 and Brouwers, L. (2024) Peacebuilding and social change through soap opera: the two elements of moral authority of ‘Team Kenya’. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 19 (1). pp. 32-45. ISSN 1542-3166
Abstract
Thus far, the success of soap operas in peacebuilding and their contribution to social change have been attributed to the edutainment format they usually take. The edutainment format is indeed an essential element of success, but it alone does not reveal the basis for soap operas’ influence on audiences and societies. We therefore argue that for soap operas to have a transformative peacebuilding effect, to contribute to the learning of non-violent engagement with conflict and thereby to enable social change and resilience to violent conflict within societies, they need to do more than educate and entertain: they need to acquire moral authority. This moral authority can only be derived from the combination of two elements: first, edutainment and second, civil norm building. The second element, though indispensable, has thus far not formed part of our understanding of the success of soap operas. To illustrate our argument, we take the soap opera Team Kenya which was created following the 2007–2008 post-election violence to help Kenyans overcome their ethnic-tribal identity conflicts in non-violent ways as a case study.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | soap opera; edutainment; civil norm building; moral authority; fictional mass media; peacebuilding; Kenya |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Journalism Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Apr 2024 14:40 |
Last Modified: | 06 Oct 2024 14:59 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/15423166231220706 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:211619 |