Date of Completion

12-7-2011

Document Type

Campus Access Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

First Advisor

Laurie Poklop

Abstract

I work for a survey research corporation that handles everything from quick turnaround local studies that last months to national and international longitudinal studies that last for years. Outreach and social marketing represent the final stages of many of these projects. A common activity during outreach is to communicate research results to target populations with the goal of inspiring behavior change.

Storytelling is an excellent strategy for social marketing outreach. Many clients, in fact, ask for storytelling in the form of "success stories". But this kind of storytelling is not the same as report writing, journalism or literature. It's not information or entertainment but a blend of the two called "edutainment." It's a skill that can be learned, but edutainment storytelling is a specialized skill that follows specific guidelines. The Graphics staff is experienced in edutainment storytelling. Our challenge is that often we are brought into these projects well after the research staff has started the story development process. The purpose of this training is to teach research staff how to develop content for an effective edutainment story—specifically in terms of gathering the information to be used by the production team.

The training will consist of three elements and scripts and content notes for each are presented here. The edutainment storytelling training includes:

  1. an in-person "Brownbag" seminar to inform staff about the value of edutainment storytelling and the company resources that are available;
  2. job aids for staff who want to learn more or want tools to help them during the information gathering process; and
  3. a three-part web based training program on the company intranet.

Comments

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