A recent BBC news magazine article, Is the alcohol message all wrong?, has challenged the validity of current alcohol education campaigns. Social anthropologist Kate Fox posed the provocative question... Is it alcohol that causes the nation's problems - binge drinking, promiscuity, violence - or are these effects actually determined by our cultural values and norms?
Fox describes two alternative cultures: so called "ambivalent" cultures such as the UK, where alcohol is strongly associated with dis-inhibition and anti-social behaviour. Secondly "integrated" cultures, such as Mediterranean countries where drinking alcohol is viewed much more as "morally neutral" and is normalised as such.
She insists that these variations in attitude and subsequent behaviour cannot be explained away by consumption rates - people behave as their cultural beliefs would predict, and we get the problems we are primed to anticipate. For instance, we get disinhibiting behaviour when intoxicated because that's in part what we expect.
Fox cites experiments which demonstrate that people can remain in control of themselves under certain situations, for example when incentivised to do so. Ergo, we are not the slaves of ethanol but of our own beliefs about what it will make us do. Tackling alcohol education campaigns from this perspective would mean promoting an attitude shift in our population; indeed in the very beliefs and expectations that we hold about alcohol in the UK. Fox states in the article:
"...we need a complete and radical re-think of the aims and messages of all alcohol-education campaigns. So far, these efforts have perpetuated or even exacerbated the problem, because almost all of them simply reinforce our beliefs about the magical disinhibiting powers of alcohol."
Others might agree on this point, such as Don Shenker who has previously suggested in a DDN article that the industry may construct messages that serve its own interests. Other health interests might argue that it is not alcohol messages that can 'change the culture' of problem drinking, which can only be achieved with action on price, availability and marketing.
Regardless, responsible drinking messages or 'educational approaches' will continue to be a popular response to alcohol problems. But are we ready for such a "radical re-think" on these messages... or will we continue to just get what we expect?
Comments