Entertainment, Education, and Attitudes Toward Domestic Violence

Abstract

We study attitudes towards domestic violence in a sample of young women and men exposed to the edutainment TV series MTV Shuga 3, which features a sub-plot on this theme, and in a sample that was not. We measure viewers' memory of the characters and identification with them. Eight months after the show, male viewers of Shuga report improved attitudes and are 21 percent less likely to justify violence than men in the control group. Attitudes improve among women and men who remember the characters associated with the violence plot, though not among those who identify with the characters.