Who We Are
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Mission
Population Media Center (PMC) strives to improve the health and well-being of people around the world through the use of entertainment-education strategies, like serialized dramas on radio and television, in which characters evolve into role models for the audience for positive behavior change.
Our mission is to collaborate with the mass media and other organizations worldwide to:
- Bring about stabilization of human population numbers at a level that can be sustained by the world’s natural resources
- Lessen the harmful impact of humanity on the earth’s environment
The emphasis of the organization’s work is to educate people about the benefits of small families, encourage the use of effective family planning methods, elevate women’s status and promote gender equity.
Using Soap Operas for Social Change
PMC uses a specialized methodology for creating serialized dramas that are effective in changing attitudes and behavior related to people’s health and well-being. Our serial dramas are based on extensive formative research regarding audience attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs.
The long-running serialized dramas are written and produced locally to be country specific and culturally sensitive. The dramas do more than provide audiences with information; they effectively motivate people to change attitudes and behavior.
The advantage of a long-running serial drama is that it allows time for the audience to form emotional bonds with the characters and become invested in their triumphs and travails. As the audience follows these highly entertaining programs, they vicariously experience the rewards and punishments the characters receive as they act out the culture’s positive and negative values. These characters are written to be most representative of the target audience, so that the audience identifies with them and is, therefore, engaged by the drama. Having become emotionally involved with these characters, the audience is motivated and empowered to try the new attitudes and behaviors modeled for them.
