How obvious can you be? Heavy-handed messages in EE material

According to Mayer, health and social change communication materials, including Entertainment Education (EE) examples, are often designed so that the message and story are clear-cut and easy to understand. This is based on the assumption that the clearer the message, the greater its impact. As a result, these messages often feel quite heavy-handed and obvious. She asks, "Is this approach in fact the most effective one?" Mayer states that there has been a great deal of research indicating that social change is engendered by the conversation that the media promotes. It is her contention that when material is too simplistic and blatant, it invites very little of this crucial conversation, while material that is more evocative and open-ended may keep the audience more emotionally involved and thus promote subsequent behaviour-change conversation. This paper looks at available research and debates the pros and cons of clear and obvious messaging versus more open-ended and ambiguous materials.