Teaching History Through Entertainment: the Pedagogy of Who Do You Think You Are?

Ava Laure Parsemain Teaching history through entertainment: the pedagogy of Who Do You Think You Are? Abstract: Who Do You Think You Are? is a documentary series about history in which celebrities go on a journey to retrace their family tree and to learn about their Ava Laure Parsemain ancestry. Originally broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the Teaching history through entertainment United Kingdom, it has been adapted in sixteen other countries, including Australia. 07 The Australian version of the franchise has been broadcast since 2008 on the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), a public service channel whose stated purpose is to “pro- vide multilingual and multicultural radio, television and digital media services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians”. This article investigates the Australian version of Who Do You Think You Are? as an educational text, which teaches history by exploring a range of eras and historical events through the celebrities’ genealogical investigations. Based on interviews with the producers and textual analysis, it explores the series’ pedagogy and demonstrates that Who Do You Think You Are? aims to teach history through entertainment. It shows how entertainment elements like storytelling and emotions are used as pedagogical tools, and how this “edutainment” model influences the historical and historiographical lessons taught in and by the text. Thus, this article highlights the intrinsic connection between televisual pedagogy (how a programme teaches) and educational content (what it teaches). It is argued that by adopting an edutainment model – and, more specifically, by using storytelling and emotions as pedagogical tools – Who Do You Think You Are? promotes a particular conception of history and of “doing” history, which involves active investigation and personal memories. Introduction Who Do You Think You Are? is a documentary series about genealogy in which celebrities go on a journey to discover their family history and trace their family tree. Originally broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom, it has been adapted in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Rus- sia, South Africa, Sweden and the United States. Using the Australian version of the franchise as a case study, this article analyses Who Do You Think You Are? as an educational text that teaches history through the celebrities’ genealogical investigations. Based on semi- structured interviews conducted with two producers (referred to as “Producer 1” and “Producer 2”) and a programmer working for the public service channel SBS (identified as “SBS Programmer”) as well as a textual analysis of the fifth series, it examines the series’ pedagogical tools and techniques to explain how the programme Die Online-Ausgabe dieser Publikation ist Open Access verfügbar und im Rahmen der Creative CommonsLizenz CC-BY wiederverwendbar. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 © 2017 Ava Laure Parsemain https://doi.org/10.3726/spiel.2017.01.07 110 Ava Laure Parsemain teaches. How do the producers and the text teach history? By what means do they invite viewers to learn? Like most documentaries, Who Do You Think You Are? aims to inform and explain and uses certain textual features to persuade viewers that it accu- rately represents the historical world (Nichols 2001; Parsemain 2015; Renov 1993). Some sequences draw upon the codes and conventions of what Nichols calls the “expository documentary” in order to emphasise objectivity and omniscience. For example, as in most expository documentaries, objectivity and omniscience are often signified by a so- called “Voice- of- God” commentary directly addressing the viewer. In these sequences, the history lesson is delivered through the narrator’s spoken words. The images and the editing are subordinate to the spoken commentary, only providing visual support to the claims made by the narrator. The series also uses the codes and conventions of the “observational documentary” to give the impression that it spontaneously and faithfully records actual events “as they happen”, thus signifying actuality and authenticity. In such observational scenes, social actors engage with one another without acknowledging the camera’s presence, while natural sounds, natural light or a shaky hand- held camera connote the unprepared, unrehearsed record- ing of real life. These generic conventions of the documentary can be read as pedagogical tools used to persuade viewers that what they see and what they hear is an authentic, accurate and reliable source of knowledge about the historical world. But the programme does not only rely on the codes and conventions of the documentary to educate: it also brings into play entertainment techniques to teach history. Indeed, the series adopts an “edutainment” approach,1 draw- ing upon entertainment elements like celebrities, storytelling, empathy and emotions to engage viewers in the learning process. Although it contradicts some enduring assumptions about the separation between education and entertainment, the idea that television can entertain to teach has long been envisaged by media professionals and scholars (Briggs 1995; Hinds 1991). Edutainment as a pedagogical strategy was formally theorised in the 1970s, and has been applied since by producers of entertainment- education television in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Kenya and India (Klein 2011, 2013; Sin- ghal & Rogers 2002; Singhal, Rogers, & Brown 1993). Entertainment genres like soap operas, telenovelas or dramas and entertainment elements such as celebrities, storytelling and emotions can be used as pedagogical tools because audience members who are entertained are more engaged and attentive (Bry- ant & Vorderer 2006; Vorderer 2001; Wirth 2006). As Vorderer explains: 1 “Edutainment” can be defined as the combination of education and entertainment. Die Online-Ausgabe dieser Publikation ist Open Access verfügbar und im Rahmen der Creative CommonsLizenz CC-BY wiederverwendbar. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Teaching history through entertainment 111 Media users who feel entertained are more interested, more attentive, and there- fore more eager to select, follow, and to process the information given by a program than those who are not […] In fact, entertainment appears more and more to be a crucial condition for successful information processing. (Vorderer 2001, 250) This article shows how entertainment can be used as a pedagogical tool to teach history, and how this edutainment model influences the kind of historical and historiographical lessons taught by television. By adopting an edutainment model – and, more specifically, by using storytelling and emotions as pedagogical tools – Who Do You Think You Are? promotes a particular conception of history and of “doing” history, which are based on active and experiential learning, investigation, and on the personal memories of ordinary people. Thus, this study reveals the intrinsic link between televisual pedagogy (how television teaches) and educational content (what it teaches). Teaching history Who Do You Think You Are? aims to educate viewers about a wide range of historical events and eras. As the description on the back of the DVD cover explains, in the fifth series: We meet a fifteenth century Maltese medieval magnate and a seventeenth century British Royal musician. We learn about harrowing tales of Australian nineteenth century mental asylums and child mortality, through to twentieth century Hun- garian Cold War politics and families separated by war and racism. We meet bushrangers, artists and soldiers; people who left their mark on Australia and their descendants. (SBS 2013) The fifth series delves into a range of historical topics including King George IV of England and the evolution of music instruments during his reign, nineteenth century child mortality in Europe, the transport industry in Australia during the nineteenth century, the First and Second World Wars, cooperative farms, propaganda, and protests against the Communist governments after the annexation of Easter European states by the Soviet Union, the cultural assimilation of migrants in Australia after the Second World War and the history of mental health treatment. But the educational content of Who Do You Think You Are? is not lim- ited to history lessons. Through history, the series addresses questions of individual and collective identity, as the historical investigation allows the celebrities to connect with their family members and heritage. Further, this notion of identity goes beyond individuals’ family histories to include na- tional heritage (Parsemain 2016). By “reminding” Australians where they came from, that is, who their ancestors were and how they lived, the series teaches Australian identity, thus participating in the construction of what Die Online-Ausgabe dieser Publikation ist Open Access verfügbar und im Rahmen der Creative CommonsLizenz CC-BY wiederverwendbar. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 112 Ava Laure Parsemain Anderson (1983) calls an “imagined community”. Australianness is connoted by the celebrities (who are famous or iconic Australians) and by some of the backgrounds and settings. Moreover, the programme highlights Australia’s past by exploring topics such as convicts and the British colonies, conflicts between White settlers and Aboriginal peoples over land ownership, the role of Australian soldiers during the First World

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