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    Invisibilia: Inspired By 'American Idol,' Somali TV Show Aimed To Change The World

    Reality TV is popular around the world. It's also roundly mocked as formulaic and contrived. But can that kind of fragile fantasy meaningfully influence the real world?
    by Alix Spiegel Mar 16, 2018 5 minutes
    Source: Sara Wong for NPR

    Welcome to Invisibilia Season 4! The NPR program and podcast explores the invisible forces that shape human behavior, and we here at Goats and Soda are joining in for the podcast's look at how a reality show in Somalia tried to do far more than crown a winning singer. The ultimate goal: to change human behavior.

    Once upon a time there was music in Somalia, but then the music started fading out. First one music radio station, then another, then another, until there was almost no music to hear and people started MacGyvering workarounds.

    One of the people who came up with a workaround was Xawa Abdi Hassan, a young woman who lived in a village outside Mogadishu.

    "We used to use a memory card, fill the memory card with music and listen to it from our phones," Xawa says. In her house, as she cooked

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