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Article Excerpt
Alcohol messages contained in television programming serve as sources of information about drinking. To better understand the ways embedded messages about alcohol are communicated, it is crucial to objectively monitor and analyze television alcohol depictions. This article presents a content analysis of an eight-week sample of eighteen prime-time programs. Alcohol messages were coded based on modalities of presentation, level of plot connection, and valence. The analysis reveals that mixed messages about alcohol often coexist but the ways in which they are presented differ: whereas negative messages are tied to the plot and communicated verbally, positive messages are associated with subtle visual portrayals.
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The role of television as a socialization agent is well established (Way 1984). Television programs provide vivid insights into the lifestyles of influential and often aspirational characters (Diener 1993; Russell, Norman, and Heckler 2004), showing what they do, eat, or drink (Avery and Ferraro 2000; O'Guinn and Shrum 1997). As a result, consumers acquire a lot of knowledge, including health-related information (Beck et al. 2004; Gerbner 1995), from watching television dramas. This can become an issue when the information presented or lifestyles depicted do not accurately reflect reality or when behaviors displayed are not recommended (Way 1984). For instance, studies in the 1990s showed that viewers who spend more time consuming mass media held beliefs that were less supportive of good health and nutrition (Avery et al. 1997; Signorielli 1993).
One topic of great societal concern, given the potential influence of television programs on viewers, is the presence of messages about alcohol. Worldwide alcohol consumption and the related problems are on the rise. Globally, alcohol is linked to at least 773,600 direct deaths and a multitude of other health and societal problems (WHO 2007). In the United States alone, alcohol consumption is directly responsible for 85,000 deaths (Mokdad et al. 2004), including 12,700 vehicle fatalities (Yi, Williams, and Hilton 2005), and 1,574,000 hospital admissions annually (Chen, Yi, and Hilton 2005). These numbers do not truly reflect the full array of negative consequences (e.g., lost productivity, prevention programs, and healthcare expenditures) related to alcohol consumption. Portrayals of alcohol in the media have been linked to the development and maintenance of beliefs about and attitudes toward alcohol. Some studies have shown, for instance, that young people who are more exposed to positive alcohol portrayals and advertising have more favorable beliefs about drinking, say they are more likely to drink in the future, and are more likely to consume alcohol (Grube and Wallack 1994; Snyder et al. 2006; Stacy et al. 2004). Alcohol portrayals in the content of television programs also reinforce existing alcoholic behaviors. For instance, research has shown that exposing people with high alcohol dependence to a television program with alcohol scenes made it more difficult for them to resist the urge to drink heavily (Sobell et al. 1993).
To better inform consumers about the messages communicated in the content of potentially influential sources of information, it is important to monitor the content of television programs (Way 1984). The purpose of this research was to provide a comprehensive account of alcohol representations in prime-time television programming through detailed content analysis. The sample consists of 8 episodes for each of the eighteen primetime television programs from the fall 2004 season, comprising 144 episodes. Going beyond previous studies, the content analytic procedures map the alcohol messages communicated within each episode onto a typology according to dimensions identified in recent research as key factors affecting the impact of messages embedded in audiovisual content, namely, modality of presentation and level of plot connection (Babin and Carder 1996; d'Astous and Seguin 1999; Gupta and Lord 1998; Nelson 2002; Russell 2002). These dimensions are used to identify how messages about alcohol's positive and/or negative consequences are being communicated. In so doing, this investigation of alcohol portrayals in television programming extends existing content analyses of alcohol depictions (Austin and Meili 1994; Breed and De Foe 1981; Diener 1993; Futch, Lisman, and Geller 1984; Mathios et al. 1998; Pendleton, Smith, and Roberts 1991; Wallack et al. 1990) and provides insights into the potential impact that embedded alcohol messages might have on audiences.
ALCOHOL MESSAGES ON TELEVISION
Alcohol is increasingly present in the content of the television programs, films, or music videos. In fact, one study of food and beverage portrayals in prime-time programs found that alcohol was the most frequently depicted item, comprising 20% of all food and beverage portrayals (Avery et al. 1997).
Forces Influencing Alcohol Messages in Television Programs
There are many forces driving the inclusion of alcohol messages in the stories or on the sets of television programs. Product placement, a marketing practice in which companies pay for inclusion of their products in films and television programs (Balasubramanian 1994), is a frequent practice for the alcohol industry. In fact, alcohol is one of the most actively placed product categories in Hollywood television programs and movies (Russell and Belch 2005). The global placement industry is now a $7.45 billion business, with $2.1 billion spent in 2006 on paid television placements alone (PQ Media 2007). Product placements have become ubiquitous, with one estimate approximating their use in 75% of prime-time television programming (Consoli 2004). A major content analysis found that alcohol placements occurred at least once in 181 television series during the 1997-1998 season and in 233 movies (FTC 1999).
A competing and more recent trend is that television programs, along with other entertainment media, are increasingly used as platforms for educating viewers about risky behaviors, including alcohol abuse. The use of so-called entertainment--education techniques is becoming more common to tackle especially difficult issues, such as sexual responsibility or gender issues, targeting especially vulnerable audiences (Pechmann and Wang 2008; Singhal and Rogers 2002). There is no doubt that television series have much educational potential, and indeed, entertainment-education collaborative efforts between the public health organizations and the television industry have led to many programs "interweaving accurate health and social content" (Fox 2005). As a case in point, research showed that a story about a condom failure and a resulting pregnancy in an episode of Friends increased the viewers' perceptions of risks associated with condom use (Collins et al. 2003). And indeed, a number of studies have shown that embedded health messages can influence viewers' attitudes and beliefs in areas such as emergency contraception (Folb 2000) or AIDS (Kennedy et al. 2004), and they are perceived as more practical than overt persuasive attempts such as public service announcements.
Of course, television producers and writers are not always guided by marketers or education--entertainment efforts when developing story lines and creating sets. In their content analysis of sex portrayals in the television series Sex and the City, for instance, Jensen and Jensen (2007) report that the series' writers incorporated in the story lines of many episodes a number of important health issues such as smoking and cancer and paid special attention to issues of sexual health. Although the series earned a number of awards for such treatments of health issues, other researchers identified missed opportunities for conveying realistic and useful messages, such as those focused on the central breast cancer narrative included in one of the episodes (Gray 2007). In the end, artistic freedom prevails and products such as cars, home furnishings, or food and drinks are used, first and foremost, to depict scenes as realistic and lifelike (Russell and Belch 2005) and to serve as "psychocultural" cues for the audience to construct meanings about characters and groups (Avery and Ferraro 2000; Hirschman, Scott, and Wells 1998; Sherry 1995; Solomon and Greenberg 1993). The term "word-of-author advertising" actually captures the fact that writers of screenplays, novels, or television dramas incorporate consumption references and brands in the texts of their works (Friedman 1985) because of their desire to reflect real life.
Limitations of Previous Alcohol Content Analyses
A direct implication of these many driving forces is that...
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