Improving the Lives
of Women and Girls,
One Soap Opera at a Time:
Population Media Center

By Roberta Nubile

When the lives of women and girls improve, the rest of the world follows. This assertion was agreed upon by the United Nations Population Fund, the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing and the 1994 Cairo Program of Action. And it’s the guiding principle of Population Media Center (PMC), a Shelburne, Vermont-based non-profit which uses media to effect social change around the world.

The form of “media” PMC uses is serial dramas, or soap operas. Characters model behaviors that empower individuals to make gradual changes in their own lives. The soap operas are broadcast primarily via radio because television is often unavailable in countries where reproductive issues greatly impact quality of life.

To encourage listeners to keep tuning in, PMC puts a premium on high entertainment value through well-written characters and plot lines. At the same time, the topics these programs explore distinguish them from the light fare familiar to most U.S. soap-opera fans. They include female genital mutilation; rape; women’s empowerment; family planning; AIDS/HIV prevention, stigma reduction, and testing; child trafficking; environmental preservation; child and maternal health; reproductive health, including sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention; and obstetric fistula. PMC has projects in Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Oceania.

Katie Elmore, Director of Communications at PMC, recently returned from Papua New Guinea, where a new program was scheduled to launch in February 2011. She describes the process of implementing a series, which includes a six-month research period: “We start with a feasibility study, and identify key stakeholders. We identify if mass media will work in that area. We simultaneously identify funding. We study policies and laws of the country, as well as U.N. policy on that topic. We gather qualitative information from villagers on a wide range of issues that are important to them. We will find out about the food people have for breakfast, so the soap operas will be realistic.”

An infrastructure analysis is done to identify the services available in an area, so “we can direct people to follow in their characters’ footsteps, and that information is listed in a program epilogue,” Elmore explains. If services are not available, she says, “the programs still have enormous value, and we will then focus on broader social issues, such as spousal communication.”

Next is the creative development of the show. To stay true to their vision of sustainability, PMC only hires locals, no ex-pats. All the writers, actors, and crew are hired from the PMC’s target area for the program. Once the writers are on board, PMC provides training in the Sabido methodology.

The Sabido Method was developed in the 1970s by Miguel Sabido, a Mexican television researcher. According to PMC’s website, Sabido used “character development and plot lines that provide the audience with a range of characters that they could engage with – some good, some not so good – and follow as they evolve and change.” Sabido used the method on Mexican television to tackle such issues as literacy, sex, abortion, family planning, and AIDS. PMC President Bill Ryerson and Honorary Chair David Poindexter worked with Sabido for decades learning and applying the Sabido Method to programming throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Measurable results in Mexico included increases in requests for family planning information, increases in contraceptive sales, and enrollment in family planning clinics, all attributed to viewership of the telenovelas.

Elmore describes the role of the transitional character – the one with whom the audience is meant to closely identify. “This character will display a positive or negative view of the behavior the show wants to model. If it’s a positive view, [audiences] will see the character going through the change and notice all the benefits of the change. If [the character] holds a negative view, they will observe the character not getting value from a certain behavior, and notice that as well.” Either way, she concludes, “the characters give the viewers tools and empower self-efficacy.”

After the programs are filmed or recorded, pilot episodes are broadcast in the field to garner listener feedback. “I have received feedback like ‘the [language] is too fancy’ or ‘the sound needed to be better,’” says Elmore. Once the show is considered ready, it is broadcast weekly. Elmore says it is typical for family and friends to gather around the radio to listen and, it’s hoped, discuss the show after it has aired.

PMC aims for change over time, and will typically design a program with hundreds of weekly episodes. “We move in baby steps,” says Elmore. “That’s how change occurs. We are not trying to make Gloria Steinems here, or hit anyone over the head. We want to show rather than tell various outcomes of decisions.

“People react when they hear the word ‘population control,’” she continues. “We are not telling people how many children they can have; we are giving them the knowledge and tools to make decision in their own lives. We have learned through research that the reasons for lack of family planning are not [lack of] access to services. They are social – such as opposition by the males in their culture, or fatalism, as in, ‘this is how it is meant to be.’ For example, although female genital mutilation may be deemed illegal, if people still believe in it, the law doesn’t change their views. In the U.S., a 16-year-old can go to Planned Parenthood. In developing countries, there is not that same level of awareness.”

The final step in PMC’s process is to assess the impact the program has had on an area by measuring social and reproductive health indicators. Elmore feels that this aspect is responsible for the broad range of collaborators who are eager to work with PMC. “They can see that what we are doing is working, and they view development goals the same way,” she says.

Elmore describes the impact of a PMC program on an adult Ethiopian woman and her family of origin. “She broke into tears telling us her story. She told us how she didn’t want to be married off at a young age. She came from a family of ten children. Her father was 83 and had 25 children from two marriages, and her mother was 42. She’d followed the radio program since a young age. [Ethiopia was PMC’s first project country.] What gave her the ability to stand up for herself against being married off was one of the characters in the drama, Zenit. The woman is now 25 and still unmarried.

“The father then went on to say how the daughter had inspired the family as to the importance of education – and now all the children were enrolled in schooling. He said how he’d also learned from the program, and said right in front of his children that, though he loved every single one, he regretted that he couldn’t provide properly for them and told them they shouldn’t have more than two children.”

Virginia Carter, a longtime PMC board member and trainer in the Sabido method, travelled with Elmore to Papua New Guinea. Carter, who spoke by phone from her California home, calls herself a “refugee from Hollywood”: In the 1970s, Norman Lear recruited her to be a consultant on women’s issues in such ground-breaking series as All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, all of which used comedy to bring social issues to light. She eventually became Senior Vice President and Head of Drama for the largest independent television production company in Hollywood.

A veteran of using media for social change, Carter is eminently qualified to teach writers the art of creating, as she puts it, “highly entertaining characters who also happen to deliver a prosocial message.” The former president of the National Organization for Women – and former physicist – trains writers pro bono for PMC.

“I loved the idea that the characters in the shows could influence the public in a positive way,” says Carter. “I’ve been at it for a while. And I care passionately about [PMC’s] mission. I train writers in the dramatic side of their task. You can’t get anywhere unless you have a soap opera that is engaging.”

The potential of PMC and media for social change is unlimited. PMC has already developed a hybrid of Sabido methodology and Transmedia Storytelling, which utilizes electronic games, blogs, vlogs, websites, comic books, and other forms of media to enhance the characters’ impact and ability to get the message across.

Carter concludes, “The essential issue is the status of women and girls. The situation around the world is appalling. Twenty-five percent of girls are raped in Papua New Guinea. PMC does soap operas on improving spousal communication where battering is the norm.

“So many other things move in a positive direction if women and girls are in power,” Carter declares. “We will control and reduce population growth rate if we can empower women and girls, which in turn will help the water and earth. It’s too late to do this one-on-one, to stand in lecture halls. We have to use media to reach enough people fast enough.”

For more information, visit www.populationmedia.org.

Roberta Nubile is a freelance writer from Shelburne.