Dramatizing mysteries

Passion play
Socio-drama

Description

Dramatizing the central beliefs of a group or of legends and stories which communicate those beliefs, in order to raise consciousness, or to educate or to reinstil conviction.

Context

The Catholic Church in Mediaeval Europe approved didactic dramas to convey Christian doctrine and dogma to an illiterate laity.

Implementation

The People's Republic of China has used this strategy in educating the peasantry about communism.

The Passion Play is a genre of medieval religious drama which concentrates on the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. These dramas flowered in the 15th and 16th Centuries, particularly in France and Germany, and began to involve lengthy scenes, lavish staging, and intricate internal structures. Certain plays expanded to thousands of lines and required several days to perform. These more elaborate dramas have inspired a variety of later, modern passion plays whose public performance and international influence continue to this day.

Claim

This strategy is especially effective for mass education of an audience which is not literate. It can use films, for example in animated cartoons for children by which the younger generations are introduced to and indoctrinated in an ideology.