Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to describe the portrayal of alcohol content in popular YouTube music videos.MethodWe used inductive thematic analysis to explore the lyrics and visual imagery in 49 UK Top 40 songs and music videos previously found to contain alcohol content and watched by many British adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years and to examine if branded content contravened alcohol industry advertising codes of practice.ResultsThe analysis generated three themes. First, alcohol content was associated with sexualised imagery or lyrics and the objectification of women. Second, alcohol was associated with image, lifestyle and sociability. Finally, some videos showed alcohol overtly encouraging excessive drinking and drunkenness, including those containing branding, with no negative consequences to the drinker.ConclusionOur results suggest that YouTube music videos promote positive associations with alcohol use. Further, several alcohol companies adopt marketing strategies in the video medium that are entirely inconsistent with their own or others agreed advertising codes of practice. We conclude that, as a harm reduction measure, policies should change to prevent adolescent exposure to the positive promotion of alcohol and alcohol branding in music videos.
Highlights
Adolescent alcohol consumption, including binge drinking, is a significant health problem in the UK [1,2,3]
High alcohol consumption among young people represents a significant public health problem because it is associated with deleterious effects such as criminal behaviour [5, 6], unprotected sexual intercourse [7], is a risk factor for dependence in later life [8, 9] and progression to illicit drug use [10, 11]
The present analysis reports the findings of the qualitative arm of our quantitative content analysis and was carried out on the 49 videos which contained alcohol content
Summary
Adolescent alcohol consumption, including binge drinking, is a significant health problem in the UK [1,2,3]. RCT in alcohol advertising might, for example, comprise presenting a brand (the conditioned stimulus, originally neutral) a number of times with images of attractiveness (the unconditioned response), to form a positive reaction or feeling that is generated by exposure to the brand (the conditioned response). These types of “hyperdermic” models of influence have been criticised by Gill [28] as naive, reductionist and a simplistic
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