The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is using the festive season to highlight research it commissioned from the University of Bath into the role of marketing practices in shaping young people's attitudes to alcohol consumption.
Key findings from the report Branded Consumption and Social Identification: Young People and Alcohol:
1. Drinking alcohol is socially important in young people’s lives
- Participants’ views reflected the fact that, for many young people, drinking to excess is not only normal but also socially imperative, as it plays an important role in group identity formation. Getting drunk is seen as a group activity, in which the ‘fun’ of drinking to excess is considered compulsory.
- Similarly, telling stories about drinking helps to bind social groups together by providing a shared sense of adventure and entertainment. On a more individual level, stories about passing out through drinking appeared to offer a way of escaping the pressures and contradictions young people experience, providing a situation in which they are no longer responsible for their own actions.
2. Practices differ across gender, and less so across class, ethnicity and place
- There are important differences in young people’s drinking practices related to gender: both young men and women are expected to drink, but for women drinking to excess is seen as unfeminine and risky. However, ‘drinking like a girl’ (ie with restraint) was also derided, producing a dilemma for young women.
- In one location (a West Midlands city), there was effectively a class-based separation between students (as middle class) and locals (as working class) in terms of the choice of drinking venues. In a second location (a seaside town) conflicts between ‘chavs’ and ‘goths’ featured in many young people’s accounts of drinking.
3. Advertising reflects the idea of drinking as ‘fun’
- Analysis of alcoholic drinks advertising aimed at young people revealed resonances with their own accounts of drinking. In particular, fun and humour are central elements in advertising and marketing, with drinking also represented as an important part of socialising with friends – often as the ‘glue’ that binds friendship groups together.
- Drinks advertising also represents men and women drinkers very differently, with women often shown in fantasy settings and men in everyday environments.
- Paradoxically, advertisements often make fun of groups (based on class or ethnicity) that are simultaneously targeted as potential consumers.
4. Overall, government policy needs to change to reflect how young people use alcohol
- Current health education initiatives focus on ‘safe’ levels of alcohol consumption, which the study’s participants viewed as laughably low and unrealistic. This research suggests that, to be successful, such initiatives need to recognise and engage with the central importance of alcohol in young people’s lives.
- The researchers recommend approaches that tackle the issues of price, availability and marketing of increasingly strong drinks. However, they view as contradictory current policies that deregulate alcohol licensing while seeing ‘binge drinking’ as a social problem.
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