As TV has been the main media for entertainment for decades, its role in educating viewers about social issues has been utilized widely. Some people want an extreme approach: all entertainment programs on TV should be created with the purpose of edutainment in mind. I will argue for a moderate perspective, however.
The role of live action TV series in social education has been acknowledged in many countries, particularly in Latin America and Asia. Film makers use soap operas to offer opportunities for emotional identification and role modeling. Popular series maintain long-term contact with their viewers, exposing them to different aspects of the same theme over several weeks or months. For example, the Vietnamese series Please go home aired on VTV1 played around the central theme of daughters and single dad to deliver the message of the importance of family relationship and trust. Another example is the various telenovellas broadcasted in Mexico to combat drug use and addiction; they are more relatable to viewers’ daily lives, and thus are far more successful than educational documentaries.
Nonetheless, if TV content creators are forced to introduce educational information in their products, then viewers may even turn away from the programs. There is no clear definition on what should be called “educational”; more often than not, educational television is often blatantly controlled by state-media in dictatorship countries; these programs are not informative but rather misleading. For example, Chinese propaganda has been imposing the nine-dash line on every national historical drama to support their dubious maritime entitlement of the Spratly Islands.
In conclusion, if we cannot regulate the quality of educational television, it is not reasonable to impose them on every program.