A clown at a birthday party, a stadium rock concert or the battle over the last potato chip: Entertaiment is anything that distracts or amuses us. It comes from the French word entretenir, meaning “to hold inside.” It was associated with hospitality-when you entertain guests, you keep them happy and distracted. It soon came to mean “agreeable occupation of the mind; diversion or amusement.” Today we talk about theatrical entertainment as shows, visual entertainment as things to look at and audio entertainment as music.
According to Oliver and Barstsch (2010), entertainment is defined as an activity that can be understood objectively, involves communication between text and audience from external stimulus, offers pleasure, requires an audience and occurs in a passive form. Click the buttons below to find related articles about Entertaiment.