Psychologists say the function of media entertainment is “the attainment of gratification”. No other results or measurable benefit are usually expected from it (except perhaps the final score in a sporting entertainment). This is in contrast to education (which is designed with the purpose of developing understanding or helping people to learn) and marketing (which aims to encourage people to purchase commercial products).
However, the distinctions become blurred when education seeks to be more “entertaining” and entertainment or marketing seek to be more “educational”. Such mixtures are often known by the neologisms “edutainment” or “infotainment”. The psychology of entertainment as well as of learning has been applied to all these fields. Some education-entertainment is a serious attempt to combine the best features of the two. Some people are entertained by others’ pain or the idea of their unhappiness (schadenfreude).
An entertainment might go beyond gratification and produce some insight in its audience. Entertainment may skillfully consider universal philosophical questions such as: “What is the meaning of life?”; “What does it mean to be human?”; “What is the right thing to do?”; or “How do I know what I know?”. Questions such as these drive many narratives and dramas, whether they are presented in the form of a story, film, play, poem, book, dance, comic, or game.
Dramatic examples include Shakespeare’s influential play Hamlet, whose hero articulates these concerns in poetry; and films, such as The Matrix, which explores the nature of knowledge and was released world-wide. Novels give great scope for investigating these themes while they entertain their readers. An example of a creative work that considers philosophical questions so entertainingly that it has been presented in a very wide range of forms is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
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