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Cover image for book Ideological Battlegrounds

Ideological Battlegrounds

Entertainment to Disarm Divisive Propaganda
By:Dana L. Solomon
Publisher:Bloomsbury USA
Print ISBN:9781498569965
eText ISBN:9781498569972
Edition:1
Format:Reflowable

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Can entertainment challenge divisive ideologies? Can we use theater, film, games, novels, and stories disarm the ideologies of fear?

Ideological Battlegrounds: Entertainment to Disarm Divisive Propaganda introduces and develops Ideologically Challenging Entertainment (ICE) to challenge “us versus them” narratives. ICE counters polarizing perspectives by embracing multiple valid viewpoints without losing sight of facts. Additionally, this book explores the first ICE production, Two Merchants, The Merchant of Venice adapted to challenge ideologies related to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. A mixed-methods study of audience responses to this production showed that a significant number of audience members reconsidered their views, not only about the Arab-Israeli conflict but also about ideological divisions that were more personally relevant.


Ideological Battlegrounds is unique, both in its conceptualization of entertainment as a means to address local and global conflicts and in its provision of evidence for the power of performance as a tool for confronting and influencing ideological change.This book offers a new approach to bridging dangerous ideological chasms that, without significant intervention, will only continue to worsen.