This evaluation is based on the belief that changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour are best traced over time. The Soul City evaluation was designed to obtain a baseline before the intervention and then to compare this with the post-intervention survey, making it possible to explore the impact of the campaign. Four representative sites around the country were surveyed over a period of one year (1600 respondents, 20 focus groups, and 15 in-depth interviews). The research was intended to be "deep" and to focus on gaining more intensive information from a smaller sample.

61% of all respondents had been exposed to Soul City material. Specifically, 7% of TV viewers had seen Soul City TV, which was estimated to have reached nearly 2 million people each week. 41% of radio listeners had heard Soul City Radio and 37% of newspaper readers had seen the Soul City booklets. It is also noted that nearly a third saw the TV programme and also accessed the material through some other medium. 70% of 16-24 year olds were exposed to the materials.

Overall, 51% of people accessing the materials had no formal education; 49% had only primary education. The TV drama ranked first, second, or third in audience ratings for every week of transmission. The authors note that multimedia access is widespread throughout South Africa, even in marginalised and remote areas - approximately 92% of South Africans have access to radio and 71% to television; 17% read daily newspapers. This makes South Africa an ideal candidate for edutainment.

56% of sample discussed issues raised in Soul City with friends or family; of those, 68% discussed AIDS, 43% discussed smoking, and 40% discussed tuberculosis (TB).

95% of the sample claimed to have learned something from Soul City. People accessing Soul City are 15% more accurate on tobacco and health issues than people not accessing Soul City; 65% had a high AIDS knowledge score compared with 48% of the people who had not accessed Soul city. The most substantial knowledge gain was among 16-24 year olds. Before the airing of the show, only 3% were able to correctly answer a questionnaire about HIV transmission; after airing, that rate increased to 70%. All 3 mediums were effective in communicating messages about HIV/AIDS (32%-30% reporting learning something about this) and smoking (20%-12% learning something about this); the radio programmes contributed to learning about condom usage (19%).

"Attitudes have been shifted by Soul City" [from evaluation report] - e.g., people accessing 2 components of the Soul City programme are almost twice as likely to disagree with the statement "AIDS sufferers should be moved away" as people not accessing [64% vs. 36%]; and 17% were more likely to agree with the statement "It is never too late to stop smoking" [77% vs. 60%].

Of the 95% who claimed to have learned from Soul City, 78% said they used that information in relation to their lives - e.g., people accessing Soul City are twice as likely to always use a condom as people who have not accessed [28% vs. 14%]. Soul City also demonstrated improvement in male condom usage. Before Soul City only 18% of 16-24 year olds "always" used a condom; afterward, that figure increased to approximately 27%.

Soul City Series 2 Evaluation Report (1997).