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Article Excerpt
Drinking portrayals and alcohol advertising are common in popular media and young people are highly exposed to them. Although some studies found that exposure to alcohol advertising is related to increases in drinking among youth (Saffer & Dhaval, 2003; Unger, Schuster, Zogg, Dent & Stacy 2003; Saffer, 2000; Pirisi, 2000; Austin & Knaus, 2000), other studies produced mixed and inconclusive findings (Ellickson, Collins, Hambarsoomians & McCaffrey 2005; Flemming, Thorson & Atkin 2004; Saffer, 2002).
In their recent economic analysis Snyder & Dave (2006) find that alcohol advertising--the majority of which is aimed at consumers of beer and liquor, not wine--"has a positive effect" on whether youth drink at all and on how much young people imbibe. The relationship is especially pronounced for underage female drinkers.
Recent longitudinal research and studies that used techniques to control for reciprocal effects suggest that exposure to, attention to, and liking of alcohol advertising may influence children and adolescents' drinking beliefs and behaviors (Grube & Waiters, 2005).
Other studies point out the relationship of alcohol advertising and consumption styles, looking at the values conveyed in ads contents and at the culture they express. The alcohol industry tries to find new consumption situations for Italian people, outside the well-provided mealtime table. Advertising seems to be able to capture some aspects of the social reality (e.g. female and young people drinking) and to exclude others (a nourishing style) (Beccaria, 2001a).
Even if in Italy the consumption of alcoholic beverages is still strongly integrated into daily life as well as part of social life (Allamani, Cipriani & Prina 2006), it is important to note, in recent years, a progressive internationalization of consumption, with a consequent reduction of wine consumption as part of everyday life, in favor of a greater concentration of drinking on the weekend and the growing importance of alcoholic drinks which are not typically Italian (Beccaria, 1997). In the process of transition from a "wet" drinking culture to a new model of drinking, "damp drinking," advertising can participate actively, as one of the agents, in the process of redefining consumption patterns. This could be particularly true regarding the transmission of a positive image of drinking styles among children. They are every day "bombarded" by hundreds of advertisements without the kind of filter that earlier was represented by alcohol socialization in the family context.
The necessity of an increasing attention to the effects of alcohol marketing on a specific target, children and young people, finds support in recent studies on alcohol and youth in Europe: the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study (Currie, Roberts, Morgan, Smith, Settertobulte, Samdal et al. 2004)--and the ESPAD study--European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (Hibell, Andersson, Bjarnasson, Ahlstrom, Balakireva, Kokkevi et al., 2004). The patterns of alcohol consumption reveal that frequent drinking and drunkenness are increasing in most European countries, even if strong differences among drinking cultures still exist.
In this article I examine how content regulations work on Italian alcohol advertising and promotion in different media channels (TV, radio, magazines, billboards, and environments attended by adolescents), taking into account the complexity of the nexus between alcohol marketing, and advertising in particular, and alcohol consumption.
Alcohol advertising regulation in Europe and in Italy
European Union (EU) regulation on alcohol marketing
The expression "alcohol policy" has been introduced into the English language quite recently and has its origin in Scandinavian thinking (Room, 1999:11). To speak of alcohol policies makes sense, in Room's opinion, only in those cultural circumstances where alcohol is widely problematized on a social level, so there is emphasis on the dimension of alcohol as a problem and not as one of the many aspects of economic and social life.
In Europe some indicators highlight a tendency towards the convergence, at least on the level of alcohol consumption, between countries characterized by a drinking culture strongly influenced by temperance and those countries characterized by a culture that is tolerant towards alcoholic drinks in general and rather in favor of the integration of wine in daily life. It is evident, therefore, that even those countries which are less inclined to consider alcohol as a problem are beginning to develop, or at least discuss, alcohol policies, as is witnessed by French legislation (Craplet, 1993).
In this process, an important role is being carried out by the European Union (EU). On the one hand, the EU has pushed the countries traditionally characterized by strict alcohol control laws towards a re-evaluation of this control. In the other direction, the European Council made recommendations for effective mechanisms in the fields of promotion, marketing and retailing to ensure that producers do not sell alcoholic beverages specifically targeted at children and adolescents, and to ensure that alcoholic beverages are not designed or promoted to appeal to children and adolescents.
The Council Recommendation on the drinking of alcohol by young people, in particular children and adolescents, of June 5, 2001 (2001/458/EC) states that Member States should, while having regard to their different legal, regulatory, or self-regulatory environments:
* Encourage, in cooperation with the producers and the retailers of alcoholic beverages and relevant nongovernmental organizations, the establishment of effective mechanisms in the fields of promotion, marketing and retailing;
(a) To ensure that producers do not produce alcoholic beverages specifically targeted at children and adolescents;
(b) To ensure that alcoholic beverages are not designed or promoted to appeal to children and adolescents, and paying particular attention inter alia, to the following elements:
* The use of styles (such as characters, motifs or colors) associated with youth culture,
* Featuring children, adolescents, or other young looking models, in promotion campaigns,
* Allusions to, or images associated with, the consumption of drugs and of other harmful substances, such as tobacco,
* Links with violence or antisocial behavior,
* Implications of social, sexual, or sporting success,
* Encouragement of children and adolescents to drink, including low-price selling to adolescents of alcoholic drinks,
* Advertising during, or sponsorship of, sporting, musical, or other special events which a significant number of children and adolescents attend as actors or spectators,
* Advertising in media targeted at children and adolescents or reaching a significant number of children and adolescents,
* Free distribution of alcoholic drinks to children and adolescents, as well as sale or free distribution of products which are used to promote alcoholic drinks and which may appeal in particular to children and adolescents. [...]
(d) To allow manufacturers to get prelaunch advice, in advance of marketing a product or investing in a product, as well as on marketing campaigns before their actual launch;
(e) To ensure that complaints against products which are not being promoted, marketed or retailed in accordance with the principles set out in points (a) and (b) can be effectively handled, and that, if appropriate, such products can be removed from sale and the relevant inappropriate marketing or promotional practices can be brought to an end. [...]
Since this is a recommendation, Member States are not obliged to enforce it. Thus the only established regulation on alcohol advertising and marketing can be found in the Television without Frontiers Directive. The main objective of Council Directive 89/552/EEC (on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in member states concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities--Television without Frontiers) was to create the necessary conditions for free movement of TV broadcasts. But the directive also includes some restrictions concerning alcohol advertising in broadcast media.
Article 15 states that advertising for alcoholic...
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