Lowering the Boom: Population Activist Bill Ryerson Is Saving the World - One "Soap" at a Time

In this article, published in the Burlington, Vermont (USA)-based alternative newspaper Seven Days, Pamela Polston navigates the background, experiences, and ideas of communication for social change practitioner William Ryerson, who creates soap operas around the world that draw on entertainment-education strategies to shift people's behaviour. As detailed here, Ryerson is the founder of a Vermont-based non-profit organisation called Population Media Center (PMC), which strives to improve the health and well-being of people around the world through broadcast and print media that feature characters who evolve into role models for the audience - toward positive behaviour change.

Polston here traces the path of Ryerson's engagement with this strategy, highlighting his introduction to the social learning theory of American psychologist Albert Bandura and the telenovela creations of Mexico's Miguel Sabido. Ryerson has been inspired by this strategy, the core idea of which is that people learn (or re-learn) behaviours by imitating others - for example, sympathetic characters on a television or radio drama. Various examples of the impact of this strategy, as integrated into projects carried out by PMC and other organisations, are provided here; for instance:

• Radio Tanzania's 4-year serial (1993 to 1997), whose name translates to "Let's Go with the Times", sought to impact family planning and AIDS prevention in a country where televisions are uncommon. In the programme, a male character with indiscriminate mating habits ended up dying a slow and torturous death from AIDS. Then serving as Executive Vice-President at the New York-based Population Communications International (PCI), Ryerson evaluated the effectiveness of the show, finding that 55% of the population ages 15 to 45 listened to it and 82% said it changed their behaviour with regard to HIV/AIDS prevention. "It was by far the country's most popular show," Ryerson notes. "And there was a 150 percent increase in the use of condoms."
• In Mexico, Sabido's creation "Acompaname," or "Come With Me," focused on birth control. "Following the show there was a 33 percent increase in family planning appointments at clinics" around the country, notes Ryerson. "Contraceptive sales increased 23 percent in one year." Over the next decade, and with continued family planning soap operas, Mexico's birth rate declined by 34%.
• India's "Hum Log," or "We People", was a 17-month series that achieved 60%-90% ratings; evaluators reported that 70% of the viewers said they had learned from "Hum Log" that women should have equal opportunities; 68% said they learned women should have the freedom to make personal decisions; and 71% said family size should be limited.

Several specific strategic points are highlighted in this article, including the importance of ensuring that the creators and actors of a soap are "in country" - people who understand the culture and its values. In addition, as Ryerson explains, "You can't change people very, very rapidly overnight....The way to bring about meaningful change is in maybe 50 or more episodes, to hook people on the characters and issues. Then finally you put the characters, that the audience is fond of, in some situation where they gradually adopt new behaviors. The audience hangs in there."