MEDIA INFLUENCES ON ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR

MEDIA INFLUENCES ON ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR

1. FILM REPRESENTATIONS

   • SULKUNEN - collected scenes from 47 films. He found they presented drug use as an enjoyable activity, contrasting it with the dullness of ordinary life. Drug use was presented as a way to alleviate problem, eg, in Human Traffic the use of ectasy is portrayed as a way of resolving relationshp problems between 2 of the main characters
   • GUNASEKERA ET AL - reviewed 87 of the most popular films in the last 20 years. Films portraying illegal drugs were less common than those portraying alcohol intoxication (32%) and tobacco (68%), but tended to portray the use of such drugs postively

2. CHANGING ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR

   • BENNETT ET AL - evaluated the TV series 'Psst.. the Really Useful Guide to Alcohol (6 30 minutes instalments broadcast in 1989). Those who watched the series showed an improvement in terms of knowledge but not consumption when compared to a control group
   • In 2008, a TV and internet campaign was launched to warn teenagers of the dangers of cocaine use, Using a dog called Pablo to seek them out, this showeed the effects of cocaine use, such as heart attacks
   • Between 1998 and 2004, $1 billion were invested in the US National Youth Anti Drug Campaign. This aimed to educate young people to reject drugs, prevent initiation of drug use and convince occasional users to stop

3. EVALUATION OF FILM REPRESENTATIONS

   • SARGENT AND HANEWINKEL - tested whether adolescents' exposure to smoking in the movies influenced their initiation into smoking. They surveyed a total of 4385 adolescents aged 11-1 who were re-surveyed a year later. They found that in those individuals who had not smoked when first surveyed, exposure to movie smoking over the intervening year was a significant and strong predictor of whether they had begun to smoke when re-surveyed a year later.
   • BOYD - argues that films frequently do represent the negative consequences of alcohol and drug dependence. For example, illegal drug use and addiction, claims Boyd, are depicted by physical deterioration, sexual degradation, violence and crime and moral decline. In the US, filmmakers are provided with script-to-screen advice about how to represent drug use and addiction in films and offered financial incentives if they do so in a negative way
   • BYRNE - argues films such as trainspotting are particularly important, partly because of their widespread appeal, but also because such films provide enduring stereotypes of drug addicts, both for the addicts themselves and also the general public. He draws a parallel with the fact that the dominant image of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) comes not from the public information literature of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, but from the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

4. EVALUATION OF CHANGING ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR

   • Methodological problems with the Kramer et al study - involved an intervention group, that watched the 'Drinking Less' series, and a control group that remained on the waiting list for the same treatment. First, the intervention group received weekly visits from the researchers so that the extra attention may well have worked in favour of a positive outcome for this group. Second, the waiting list group were aware that they were receiving treatment soon, so may well have postponed its behavioural change, thereby artificially inflating the magnitude of the difference between the 2 groups
   • HORNIK ET AL - suggest 2 main reasons why the very expensive US anti-drug campaign failed to produce significant reductions in drug use. First, given all the anti-drug messages to which youths in the US are exposed, and the fact that the messages in the campaign were not particularly novel, it is unsurprising that the effects were minimal. Second, anti-drug advertising contains an implicit message that drug use is commonplace.
     • JOHNSTON ET AL - found that youths who saw the campaign ads took from the message that their peers were using marijuana, and were then more likely to imitate marijuana use themselves

5. EVALUATION

   • Ethical Guidelines - In the US, the Office for Substance Abuse Protection (OSAP) has developed guideline materials about drugs for film and TV writers. These recommend that writers should communicate that all illegal drug use is 'unhealthy and harmful to all persons', that addiction should be presented as a disease, and that abstinence is the 'viable choice for everyone'. These guidelines also note that there should be no references to 'recreational use of drugs', since no drug use is 'recreational'
   • Creativity and Addiction - an analysis by BELLI offers support that the media and addiction are linked, but in a different way. Brian Wilson was the creative genius behind The Beach Boys and was consistently named as one of the most creative and influential figures in the medium of popular music. Wilson's addiction to drugs throughout the 1960s and 1970s is widely documented. He enjoyed the experiences of cannabis and LSD to help him write music and use bigger, denser sounds in music production. His addiction to cocaine was used as a form of self-medication as he struggled with the pressures of writing and touring. Wilson's addiction to drugs offers an insight into how being part of a competitive media drives some people to experiment with drugs as a creative influence, but then become victims of the drug's addictive power
   • Correlation isn't the same as Causality - most of the evidence about media effects on addictive behaviour is correlational, eg, exposure to alcohol and drug use in films and on TV is related to addictive behaviour. However, this does not indicate a causal relationship between exposure and addiction