Institutional Review of Educational Radio Dramas: Case Study 5: India (Tinka Tinka Sukh)

Case Study 5: India - Tinka Tinka Sukh (Happiness Lies in Small Things)

Tinka Tinka Sukh has been quite extensively written up to demonstrate the success of the entertainment-education approach to behavior change. It was a 104-episode radio serial drama broadcast in India between 1996 and 1997 by All India Radio (AIR), in partnership with Population Communications International (PCI). Both AIR and PCI had had previous successful entertainment-education dramas on radio and television, notably Hum Log on Indian TV in the mid 1980s (Singhal and Rogers, 1999).

The idea to broadcast a radio soap opera in Hindi was conceived at a meeting between the heads of PCI and AIR in 1994. PCI organized a Soap Opera Methodology Workshop in June 1995 at AIR, production began in September 1995 and the first broadcast was in February 1996. AIR received creative assistance from a band of freelance scriptwriters trained by PCI at the Workshop and its own staff (Kapoor, 2001).

The 104 episodes of the drama lasted 20 minutes each and were broadcast twice weekly for a year. The drama was set in a farming community in North India. Chaudhri ('elder leader'), his wife Chaudhrian, and son Suraj represent an ideal family. They promote women's causes (anti-dowry, gender equality and women's empowerment) and the importance of creating a self-sufficient harmonious village. By contrast Chacha's family is blindly traditional and riven with conflict; his wife is the village gossip and his son is a delinquent. The widow, Gareebo, and her three daughters are more transitional characters, who depict the trials of women in a tradition-bound, patriarchal society. The AIDS storyline is told through the character of Jumman, "a farmhand on Chaudri's fields. Momentarily swayed by urban glamour, he contracts AIDS and disrupts his family's harmony. But he finally accepts his wife's view that life's happiness lies in small things." (Singhal and Rogers, 1999)

Tinka Tinka Sukh was highly musical and designed to appeal to popular tastes in the Hind-speaking belt. A top Bollywood singer composed the music and at the end of each episode a musical couplet emphasized the main messages. The music-based style and strong storylines and characters, as well as very well known singers, musicians and songwriters helped make this drama popular.

Management:Tinka Tinka Sukh is one of a very few entertainment-education radio serials to have been largely created and directed by a local organization in a developing country. India has the infrastructure, skills and resources to run a big and effective national broadcast system. This drama demonstrates the experience, skills, resources and commitment that AIR could bring to pro-social media projects. Although AIR was still receiving input from PCI at the time, it was minimal.

Overall management was in the hands of AIR, which had extensive experience, existing infrastructure and a network of local radio stations. The Director of Programs had previously produced three popular, provocative radio serials on adolescence and had been trained at the BBC (Singhal and Rogers, 1999). She was responsible for recruiting and managing staff, listener-liaison, publicity, casting and directing the actors, guiding the writers, negotiating airtime with 29 local stations, and periodic reporting. The Producer was responsible for the day-to-day management of the drama itself.

PCI facilitated training, assisted in the listener feedback process, provided freelance writers for the drama, organized external evaluations and funded spin-offs like magazine articles and the book-version of the storyline. The partnership between AIR and PCI appears to have been quite strong - probably based on an understanding between key individuals in each organization. In fact, the then Director General of AIR is now PCI's country director in India.

Staffing: Five AIR staff members worked on the show from start to finish: the Director, Executive Producer, Producer, Production Assistant and a Secretarial Assistant. There was one staff writer, who completed half of the scripts, and about ten other freelance scriptwriters. AIR technicians helped in the recording and transmission. Each episode employed an average of six experienced actors on temporary contracts.

Writing and Production Process: The overall shape, characters and location were planned at the scriptwriting workshop, in accordance with the Moral Framework established with PCI's support. Storylines were planned about a month in advance of actual scriptwriting. The Executive Producer coordinated meetings to ensure that continuity in characterization was maintained. Various freelance writers were used, for instance, one with a legal background was hired for episodes dealing with women's rights and divorce law. It was sometimes difficult to guide the writers away from clichés about women's problems and to make their work more realistic (Bhasin, personal communication, 2001).

Formative Research: Before production began, an independent consultant conducted a literature review. Findings were presented to the creative team during a one-day session. Information already available from the Audience Research Wing of AIR was also used. No baseline research was done.

Monitoring and Audience Feedback: Having a register of dedicated listeners was a monitoring methodology pioneered by Bhasin (personal communication, 2001). Before the drama went on air, thousands of letters were sent out to listeners of previous radio serials, inviting them to be part of a self-selected listening panel. All listeners were invited to send in their comments/queries as well. India has a strong letter-writing culture and the drama received a total of 150,000 letters, which were answered during a bi-weekly radio discussion program. Feedback from thousands of questionnaires was reviewed and read on air regularly, with prizes for those who provided thoughtful and sustained responses. Furthermore, the comments helped to fine tune ongoing programs.

The external evaluators who analyzed some of the letters noted that writers were atypical, being literate and predominantly male. The analysis of letters revealed a high degree of para-social interaction with the characters in Tinka Tinka Sukh. One striking example was a two-by-three-foot "letter" signed (in some cases with thumbprints) by 184 residents of Lutsaan Village in Uttar Pradesh stating, "Listening to Tinka Tinka Sukh has benefited all listeners of our village, especially the women...Listeners of our village now actively oppose the practice of dowry - they neither give nor receive dowry" (Singhal and Rogers, 1999).

Supporting Activities: AIR produced a radio program to back up Tinka Tinka Sukh, which was aired every two weeks for the year that the drama was aired. Its format was interactive in that it covered points raised in listeners' letters. AIR's own staff hosted the show, including the Director. At the end of the serial, listeners were invited to participate in a Radio Bridge Program hosted by a well-known radio personality (Kapoor, 2001).

Publicity was extensive; promotional spots, featuring Tinka Tinka Sukh's catchy theme tune, character voices, jingles and narration were broadcast on all 27 stations. These spots were also broadcast on AIR's commercial channels, the youth channel and the national network radio channel, as well as on television. Space in newspapers was bought to advertise the series and a book version was published when the series ended.

In 1999, an independent evaluation was done by a team led by Dr. Arvind Singhal of Ohio University (Singhal et. al. 1999). The research was mainly qualitative, comprising personal interviews with key officials, content analysis of episodes and of a sample of 237 listeners' letters, and an in-depth study of the village of Lutsaan. The research also included a before-after sample survey comparing a treatment area and a control area in two Districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Highlights of the findings included: 59% of the sample of listeners said they felt like giving advice to particular characters in the drama; 81% felt they knew certain characters as close friends; and 40% of the sample actively discussed aspects of the program with others. Striking examples of collective efficacy came from the village of Lutsaan; for example, a village group was formed to end dowry-giving and a cooperative was set up to start a school (Singhal and Rogers, 1999).

One of the most interesting findings of the evaluation was a phenomenon dubbed a "paradoxical communication" effect (Papa et. al., 2000). This manifested itself in, for example, "Mukesh, a young male villager in Lutsaan [who] talked about the importance of small family size and gender equality [but] he also stated that abortion for sex selection was an acceptable means of limiting the population." (Singhal and Rogers, 1999) Singhal explains this paradoxical effect by saying, "Established patterns of thought and behavior are difficult to change, people often engage in an adjustment process until the new behavior patterns are fully internalized."

One might well question the impact of such a short-lived drama in terms of changing attitudes and behaviors. Social and individual change, particularly regarding gender and reproductive health issues, is notoriously long-term. The appearance of the "paradoxical communication effect" would seem to lend weight to the need to spend time addressing the unforeseen effects of a drama. A longer-running drama could have been re-oriented in response to evaluation results.

Sustainability: As a finite series, Tinka Tinka Sukh was never meant to be sustainable over the long-term. However, AIR continued to produce other serial dramas with social and environmental messages, which have proven very popular. PCI built on the success of Tinka Tinka Sukh by running four new serials in India's southern states, addressing family planning, gender equality and dowry issues. Two further soaps were planned in Orissa and Punjab, as well as a new soap opera for the Hindi belt involving rural medical practitioners as key characters. All of the above were developed with AIR.