Environmental Education Through Narrative Films: Impact of Medicine Man on Attitudes Toward Forest Preservation

Abstract

Narrative film is a multimodal, multisensual, and universal medium that has potential to reach and influence a wide range of people regarding environmental issues. The author conducted an experiment to explore the impact of film portrayals of deforestation among college students. One-hundred eighty-one undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: Experimental and Control Conditions. Students in the experimental condition watched the movie Medicine Man portraying the issue of deforestation, whereas those in the control condition watched an unrelated movie with a similar length. Participants in both conditions then completed a self-administered questionnaire that contained the measure of attitudes toward forest preservation. The results indicated that participants in the experimental condition became more favorable toward the preservation of forests (i.e., unfavorable toward deforestation) than did those in the control condition. Regression analysis also revealed that perceived realism regarding the movie and role affinity with native people portrayed in the movie were significant predictors for the attitudes toward forest preservation.

Keywords:

• deforestation
• drench effects
• environmental attitudes
• environmental education
• message involvement
• narrative film
• perceived realism
• role affinity

Notes

1. Names of the students who signed up for each session were placed in two opaque bags (one for males and one for females) and drawn one by one to be assigned randomly to one of the two conditions.

2. The students in Control Condition watched the movie Three of Hearts (1993), a comedy/romance film portraying a story involving a love triangle of two women and a man in an urban setting. This movie was also shortened to 65 minutes as with Medicine Man.