Edutourism

Edutourism – a new portmanteau and one that in my opinion is worthy of recognition, my views are of course not always reflected by the wider academic community many of whom are reticent to use such contemporary terms. I was privileged to recently attend and deliver a presentation at the first Canadian EduTourism Association (CETA) conference held in Havana, Cuba. The conference theme was around sustainable edutourism. The term edutourism was challenged by several speakers, who questioned whether the term was actually necessary. I personally feel that we need to be bold in our thinking when it comes to terminology, it will take time for a term like edutourism to properly filter into academic speak, but it is inevitable that if we don’t start the ball rolling now, then eventually somebody else will.

As to the debate as to whether or not we need such a term – yes of course we do – as edutourism as a concept exists, and there is not currently a term for it in its own right. One argument presented against the term edutourism was that we don’t need such a term, as tourism for the purposes of education has always existed. In my mind this point is flawed, as we already use terms such as medical tourism and business tourism, and these forms of tourism have existed since man began to travel.

I believe that we definitely do need to have a clear definition of what edutourism is, I would like to offer the following definition, which I hope covers the subject without being too specific and narrowing the terms remit: “The sum total of activities associated with tourism for the specific purpose of learning and / or education”. This definition allows for the interpretation to include all aspects of the tourism system, including, searching, booking, travel, accommodation and destination activities.

From an entertainment management perspective, it is the activities which take place in the destination zone of the tourism system, which are of greatest relevance, the activities that I allude to are those relating to edutainment. This was the theme of the presentation that I presented at the CETA conference, which was entitled ‘Responsible Edutainment in the Tourism System’ and can be downloaded from SlideShare here. I would be happy to hear the thoughts of others on the subject of edutourism, edutainment and indeed any other portmanteaus!

Dark Tourism is Edutainment

Dark tourism is a term used to describe the visitation of sites that were once associated with death, suffering or disaster. Creating visitor attractions that serve as edutainment facilities at these sites is something that does not sit comfortably with many people and raises the ethical and moral question as to whether it is ‘right’ to do so. Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland, is one of the sites of the world’s single largest atrocity in history, the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The ‘final solution’ at Auschwitz lead to over a million people - mostly Jews, but also prisoners of war, political objectors, homosexuals, and gypsies (amongst others) from all over Europe being gassed, worked, starved, and tortured to death. In 1947 a museum was built at Auschwitz, to commemorate those who had died and to educate visitors as to the true atrocities that occurred there. In 1979 Auschwitz was made a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in recognition of the unique role that it played in history, and to promote peace amongst future generations through education of past atrocities. To date 25 million people have visited the museum (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2008), with this number set to rise even further with the increase in the number of budget airlines that are flying to nearby Krakow from other European destinations. The very notion that such a setting could be considered an entertainment venue is a very uncomfortable one for many. But this is considering the word entertainment as something ‘light’ or ‘happy’ which is an outdated use of the word. Auschwitz features exhibits that are designed to educate visitors, and in doing so often causes an emotional response amongst those who feel an empathetic connection with what they are seeing, hearing and reading about. This is edutainment at its most raw controversial edge, but it is undeniably edutainment, it is both captivating and educational, and participated in by (mostly) tourists as part of their recreation.


Reference

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. (2008) Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. [Internet] ABSM, Poland. URL available from: Accessed 20^th July, 2008.

Naturtainment

Naturtainment is a term for spectacles and phenomena that occur in the natural world, which can engage or captivate an audience. There is often a high degree of novelty in naturtainment, in the sense that what the audience experience is something that they rarely get to witness. Naturtainment is not controlled or managed by man, naturtainment spectacles and phenomena are controlled entirely by events in the natural world, and consequently naturtainment is not a part of the entertainment industry.

However, many naturtainment sites are recognised as being visitor attractions, and subsequently have had educational facilities built, such as visitor centres or observation platforms. The intention of these is usually to help audiences interpret and understand the naturtainment that they are witnessing. Some common examples of naturtainment attractions where interprative educational facilities can often be found include: coastlines; canyons and gorges; caves & caverns; cliffs & crags; forests & woodland; geological / rock formations; glaciers; geothermal; lakes & rivers; mountains & volcanoes; nature reserves; parklands & national parks; and waterfalls.

Safaris are guided naturtainment tours which are most common in large eco-sensitive areas that are largely unspoiled by man, and where natural flora and fauna flourish. Consequently Safaris usually take place in less developed countries (particularly African countries). Safaris often involve an audience of people travelling in vehicle(s) along with experienced guide(s) who are there to share their knowledge of the local environment, particularly its plants and animals. The major attraction of safaris is the ability to witness animals in their own natural environment. Some safaris form the basis of holidays, and can last a number of days. Whilst naturtainment as a phenomenon is not a part of the entertainment industry, it's commodification for the purposes of educating an audience is, and a subsidiary of the edutainment sector.

The video below highlights naturtainment in action.

New Musical Edutainment?

An interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian Newspaper, mentions the planned combination of entertainment and education by former Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker, who lead the band for 24 years, from their origins on the underground UK ‘indie’ scene and through the rise of ‘Brit Pop’ and ‘cool Britannia’ in an era when New Labour rose to the fore, and ‘hip’ artists such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp suddenly found themselves in the commercially all important ‘top 40’. Cocker gained a certain degree of notoriety for his stage invasion during Michael Jackson’s 'Earth Song' at the BRIT Awards in 1996, which offended many corporate execs and sponsors (whose musical knowledge probably didn’t extend beyond Smash Hits magazine). Pulp later wound down their operations (although didn’t officially split) in 2002, and since Cocker has been involved in a variety of projects including an appearance in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, curating the 2007 Meltdown Festival and various solo and collaborative music projects including a cover of Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’ with Beth Ditto.

Cocker is proposing to incorporate elements of education into his musical shows such as mini-lectures and spoken word. The Guardian article states ‘Oxbridge lecturers will doubtless be watching these gigs carefully, waiting to see if the lecture-disco format takes off’. Whilst Cocker’s proposal is interesting, it is nothing new, U.S. Industrial band Consolidated frequently punctuated their shows with lectures on a variety of subjects including racism, homophobia, over-fishing, and vegetarianism, as well as holding open debates and open mic sessions. Public Enemy produced entire musical shows around the themes of racism, equality and the ‘New World Order’, and Michael Franti when front man of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, would speak on similar subjects in-between songs. Former Bad Brains front-man Henry Rollins has also embarked on a number of spoken word tours.

The combination of education and entertainment is known as edutainment, and has been discussed extensively throughout this blog. The advantage that edutainment has over many other educational ‘formats’ is that it opens up education to those who may possibly have been ‘turned off’ by the notion of learning in their own recreation time. That said, it would be fair to assume that most people who are attracted to a Jarvis Cocker concert which incorporates a spoken word element, will probably have a certain degree of intellectuality about themselves in the first place….in which case the question is raised as to whether this is an effective educational format, or just another musical story-telling performance art hybrid? I’ll be interested to see what happens.

Edutainment needs to be VARK

Edutainment is entertainment that is designed to promote knowledge, awareness and learning, examples of edutainment include: museums; art galleries; exhibitions; zoos; aquariums and planetariums. The purpose of edutainment is to promote knowledge amongst audience members, so that they learn from the experience. There have been numerous studies about the way people take in information and learn from it. One such study is VARK developed by Dr. Neil Fleming. VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read / Write and Kinaesthetic. Each of these are categories that depict how information may be best presented to promote learning. According to the VARK website http://www.vark-learn.com: Visual means information that is presented in graphical form including posters, diagrams, graphs and charts; aural is the spoken word, and can include listening to information from a person or in a pre-recorded format; read / write is the use of written words to convey information; and kinaesthetic is the use of ‘real things’ such as demonstrations, videos and actual practice. Most people either knowingly or not have a preference for the way by which they take in information and learn from it, some people will have a specific VARK category, whilst others are known as ‘multimodal’ which means that they may share preferences from two or more categories.

In order to appeal to all members of their audiences, edutainment venues need to provide information in all VARK formats. Otherwise the messages that the venues are trying to convey may be lost on certain members of their audience. Museums have a stereotypical image amongst some people as being ‘stuffy’ and ‘boring’ due to perceptions (possibly from childhood) that all they contain are exhibits in glass cases. This may still be the case with some museums, but many modern museums now go much further than this to convey their messages to members of their audience in a number of different formats. This doesn’t apply just to museums, but to all different kinds of edutainment venues (and to edutainment as a whole), at ‘The Deep’ in Hull, (which is an aquarium) there is a rich diversity in the way that information is presented, including: graphical timelines (visual); pre-recorded spoken stories (aural); detailed written information about exhibits (read / write); as well as the tanks themselves that have the fish and other sea creatures swimming in them (kinaesthetic). The images below demonstrate VARK in practice at several edutainment venues.

A visitor watches the fish swimming in tanks at The Deep in Hull (kinaesthetic)

At the National Railway Museum in York, a guide explains about how the Japanese Bullet Train was brought to the museum (aural).

Words on a display at the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds (Read / Write)

Why not take the VARK test for yourself at http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire after completing the test, consider the results, and reflect upon your own experiences of edutainment, and which types of exhibit appeal to you the most.

A Typology for the Entertainment Industry

Entertainment is recreational by nature, meaning that it is part of a process undertaken by people who wish to rejuvenate their body and / or mind. Not all recreational activity is entertainment, indeed recreation also encompasses leisure, hobbies, pastimes, and sports. People seeking entertainment form part of a recreational audience who are searching for something that has the primary purpose of engaging or captivating them through sensory stimulation and / or emotion. An audience can be as large as infinite, and as few as one. It is important to remember that entertainment does not have to be jovial, or created with any form of humour or light relief in mind (traditionally referred to as ‘light entertainment’). The Oscar winning movie ‘Schindler’s List’ is both engaging and captivating and certainly stirs emotion in many who watch it, however few people would consider it light relief.

The global entertainment industry is massive with numerous entities that are worth over half a trillion $US annually (Vogel, 2004). These entities fall within a wide variety of sectors. In an attempt to try and categorise all of these sectors, the following entertainment typology is offered:

Adult Entertainment
Broadcast Media
Cinema and film
Computer Gaming
Culturtainment
Dance
Edutainment
Gambling
Massage
Music
Online Entertainment
Published Printed Media
Sellertainment
Spectator Sports
Spirituatainment
Staged Shows
Thrillertainment


A definition for each and some examples now follow:


Adult Entertainment

‘Entertainment that arouses sexual desire by displays of eroticism.’

Prostitution
Peep shows
Striptease
Staged sex shows
Lap dancing
Pole dancing
Erotic massage


Broadcast Media

‘Entertainment that is produced for mass audiences and broadcast / transmitted / distributed from a distant source.’

Television:
Analogue
Digital Cable / Satellite / Freeview / other
Pay per view

Radio:
Analogue
Digital


Cinema and film

‘The entire spectrum of organisations that are concerned with the production, distribution, and showing of big-screen movie entertainment.’

The film / movie making industry
The film / movie distribution industry

Venues:
Multiplexes
Independent and specialist
IMAX
DVDs

Computer Gaming

‘Entertainment that involves the use of any electronically operated system whereby challenges are presented and an input device is used to manipulate images (and usually sounds) produced by a computer or micro-processor on some kind of display’

Console Games e.g. Nintendo Wii, Playstation, X-Box
Online gaming including massively multiplayer online games
Games for personal computers and Apple Macs
Arcade games


Culturtainment

‘Entertainment that involves the celebration or commemoration of the values or beliefs of a particular segment of society.’

Parades
Festivals
Fetes
Galas
Carnivals
Cultural shows and displays such as poetry recitals and bull fights


Dance

‘Entertainment that involves the watching of rhythmic movement (often to music) with pre-determined or improvised steps.’

Live dance shows and displays, includes:
Ballet
Tap
Ballroom
Salsa
Line dancing
Break dancing
Any other kind of dance display.


Edutainment

‘Entertainment that is designed to promote knowledge, awareness and learning.’

Museums
Art galleries
Exhibitions
Zoos
Aquariums
Planetariums
Conferences
Guided tours
Adult education classes
Art and craft demonstrations
Historic re-enactments
Stately homes
Shows and displays with an educational component, such as transport shows e.g. airshows and animal displays e.g. falconry


Gambling

‘Entertainment that centres around risking the loss of money for a possible gain.’

Casinos
Bingo
Race-track
Bookmakers


Massage

'Entertainment where soft body tissues are manipulated for physical or mental rejuvination.'

Includes all types of massage.


Music

‘Entertainment that is predominantly auditory and incorporates instrumental and / or vocal tones that are structured and continuous for a period of time.’

All recorded music:
All music genres whether mainstream ‘popular’, or niche / specialist

All live music:
Concerts
Music ‘festivals’
Orchestras
Brass Bands
Choirs
Karaoke

Also:
Nightclubs
Raves


Online Entertainment

‘Entertainment that is accessed via web browsers or other software on computers or other devices that are connected to the internet. These often take the form of interlinked documents on the world wide web’

Web pages
Social networking
DHTML & ‘Flash’ documents
Podcasts
Online streaming video
Online gaming including massively multiplayer online games
Other downloads


Published Printed Media

‘Entertainment that is typically paper based, involving the use of printed text and graphics’

Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Comics
Journals
Periodicals
Brochures
Leaflets


Sellertainment

‘Entertainment that is designed to sell a product, belief or ideal with the specific intention of increasing take-up amongst the audience.’

Brochures
Themed bars and restaurants
Trade shows such as fashion shows and the motor show
Product demonstrations
Pub quizzes
Sponsored competitions
Political rallies


Spectator Sports

‘Entertainment where an audience watches an activity that involves physical exertion and fair competition.’

Pitch sports
Water sports
Motor sports
Cycling
Equestrian
Court sports
Country pursuits
Track and field
Marathons
Winter sports
Extreme sports


Spirituatainment

‘Entertainment which utilises and / or celebrates the belief that supernatural powers can have a control over destiny and fate.’

Religious festivals
Evangelism
Clairvoyants
Psychics
Palm readers


Staged Shows

‘Entertainment that is predominantly set on (or within) a purpose-built area where a pre-determined story is acted or performed.’

Opera
Theatre
Musicals
Pantomine
Plays
Dance shows
Wrestling entertainment
Stand up comedy
Sketch shows
Magic shows
Puppet shows
Mime
Multi-performance shows


Thrillertainment

‘Entertainment that is intended to thrill, excite, stimulate the senses – and sometimes cause fright.’

Theme parks
Multi-leisure parks
Fairgrounds
Water parks
Circus
Ghost tours / walks / hunts
Murder mysteries


The complexity of the entertainment industry is such that many entertainment entities would fit within one or more of the above categories, for example a television advert could be considered to be both broadcast media and sellertainment, and ballet could be considered to be dance, and a staged show, having elements of music could also partially include it within this category. Therefore it needs to be recognised that this is an industry where few entities are homogenous in nature, and that many can include characteristics from a number of sectors. What is more certain is that mostly anything that has been created with the primary purpose of engaging or captivating an audience through sensory stimulation and / or emotion should fit into at least one of the above sectors. This is work in progress so I would be happy to hear from anybody that disagrees with this or can think of anything that doesn’t.