Embedded anti-alcohol messages on commercial television: What teenagers perceive

Abstract

Educators and producers should take advantage of television's potential for reaching audiences with health-related messages. This paper investigates adolescents' perceptions of an anti-alcohol message embedded in commercial television programming. Over 900 8th and 9th graders from New York suburbs completed surveys measuring interest, knowledge, and credibility of either an episode of The Cosby Show or Family Matters. Both episodes had an anti-alcohol message embedded within their plots. Overall, students gave high rates of interest and credibility and received high scores for knowledge for both episodes. Girls and African-American students had higher scores, on average, for interest and credibility. White students had the highest knowledge scores. Students with different television viewing experiences did not differ in their perceptions of the episodes; however, students who had previously seen the episodes gave higher levels of interest and credibility. These data indicate that youngsters are receptive to antialcohol messages within commercial television episodes. The results also suggest that similarities and differences between a viewer and a televised character relate to differences in perception. However, much more research should be done in order to generalize these findings to other audiences, episodes, programs, and health-related messages.