ABSTRACT
Of the content areas discussed in this volume, social change presents a special challenge for theorists and for game designers. Social change, in contrast to learning and development, typically refers to much broader, multicomponent phenomena closely connected to peoples’ daily lives, often in conjunction with others in the family and community. Health-related behaviors, for instance, are targets of entertainment education media striving for social change (Singhal, Cody, Rogers, & Sabido, 2004), and cannot be limited simply to providing new knowledge about a certain disease. Rather, several communication goals have to be achieved if social change is likely to occur, including changes in beliefs and attitudes, learning how to perform selected behaviors, (e.g., how to become an organ donor or how to use a condom), and instilling motivation to change among members in the targeted audience. Ideally, a successful serious game may be able to produce signifi cant changes in all of these outcomes, or at least modest changes that are sustained over time.
