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Television is not the only mass medium through which peo-
ple receive messages about drinking. But for many people it is
the most important. Almost every home in America has at least
one television set, and Americans spend an average of 30 hours
a week watching television. When a person graduates from
high school, he or she will probably have spent more time in
front of a television than in a classroom. Throughout childhood
and adolescence, television viewing takes up more hours on
the average than any other single activity except sleeping.
As with violence on television, it is very difficult to prove
that so much drinking on television leads to more drinking in
real life. But the sheer quantity of drinking to which people are
exposed on television is reason for concern. Given the amount
of television young people watch and the number of drinking
incidents portrayed, a person under the legal drinking age will
watch an average of over 3,000 acts of drinking every year.
"Television has not been a very good educator about drinking
in society," concludes Lawrence WalIack of the University of
California at Berkeley. "The rate of drinking on television is
greater than that in real life and the rate of problems associated
with drinking tends to be much lower.... If indeed alcohol is
a major public health problem and, as the pane} estimates, is
responsible for 50,000-75,000 deaths annually you could not
find this out from watching television."
Advertising Alcohol: A Billion-DolZar Business
Television and the other mass media cleliver another impor-
tant set of messages about drinking: advertisements for alco-
holic beverages. Each year the alcoholic beverage industry spends
over $l billion advertising its products. "We will hear it on
radio and see it on billboards, television, magazines, buses,
subways, calendars, sports schedules, and most any other place
where space is available," says Wallack. "The attention of the
American public is clearly the focus of intense competition among
alcoholic beverage producers."
It was not always this way. When Prohibition ended, strong
regulations were imposed on the marketing of beer, wine, and
hard liquor. Federal regulators had to clear every ad for alco-
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DRONING AND THE MASS MEDIA / 85
holic beverages before it could run. Regulations and industry
codes prohibited alcohol from being associated with women,
patriotism, health, or any sort of glamorous activity. Neither
wine nor liquor could be advertised on radio or television.
Over the past few decades these restraints have gradually
been weakening. Today several of the largest beer manufac-
turers and importers including Anheuser-Busch, Heublein,
Schlitz, Coors, and Van Munching are among the top adver-
tisers on radio and television. Wine, too, is now advertised
through these media. And no law explicitly bans the advertising
of hard liquor on the air. "Given the permissive environment
that has developed on so many other matters," says Stanley
Cohen, Washington bureau chief of Advertising Age, "I assume
it is only a matter of time before liquor will be on television,
too."
The marketing of alcoholic beverages today is virtually in-
distinguishable from that of other products. Ads for alcoholic
beverages are well researchecl, slickly produced, and backed
by well-organized promotions at the retail level. Though the
number of major brewers is dwindling, brands of beer are pro-
liferating, many with their own advertising themes. "Alcoholic
beverages have achieved respectability and are marketer! by the
same people and through the same channels as soap, Chevys,
and cigarettes," says Cohen.
A good example of the new emphasis on marketing was the
Coca-Cola Company's effect on the wine market. When Coca-
Cola bought the Taylor brand of wines in the late 1970s, it set
out to promote the image of wine as a drink that is consumed
regularly rather than just on special occasions. Within a few
years the amount of advertising in the wine industry nearly
doubled largely because of Coca-Cola's aggressive marketing
techniques.
The tactics used to advertise alcohol differ little from those
used with other products. Advertisements may indirectly as-
sociate drinking with wealth, success, or social approval. They
may portray drinking as a sexy, sophisticated act. "As might
be expected," says WalIack, "advertising seeks to place the
product in the best possible light and is little, if at all, concerned
with its possible adverse consequences."
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86 / ALCOHOL IN ~ERICA
The effect of such advertising remains a point of controversy.
Researchers have never been able to agree on whether alcohol
advertising increases the amount people drink or simply influ-
ences what brand of alcohol they buy. For instance, Mark Keller
of Rutgers University contends that "you do not have to ad-
vertise alcohol to people. Why is the industry here spending
millions on advertising? Because there is competition over who
is going to sell how much of what. But ~ do not know whether
advertising really increases the volume of consumption."
The National Research Council panel on alcohol abuse has
also decided that the jury is still out on the influence of alcohol
advertising. "It is generally thought that the main effect of
commercial advertising is to alert the public to new brands, in
competition with older ones, and conversely to protect or ex-
pancT the market shares of established brands," the pane! con-
cludes. "The available scientific evidence is too sparse to permit
us any extended discussion of the effects of advertising policies.
Nevertheless, important issues of principle are involved in such
policies."
These "issues of principle" may in fact be the most important
aspect of the controversy surrounding alcohol advertising. Be-
cause such advertising is invariably enmeshed in the much
broader social context of drinking, it may be impossible to study
the effects of that advertising in isolation. The issue then be-
comes one of politics and public policy as much as scientific
research. "The funciamental issue that we need to address is
whether the wide-scale promotion of alcoholic beverages is con-
sistent with the goals of a society concerned with minimizing
the social, economic, and personal hardships associated with
current levels of alcohol-related problems," says WalIack.
Voluntary Restraint by Industry
Despite the lack of hard evidence linking exposure to drink-
ing or alcohol advertising to increased consumption, many groups
and individuals have sought to limit the extent of these influ-
ences. Within the television and advertising industries them-
seIves, many people are concerned about alcohol-relatecl
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DRINKING AND THE MASS MEDIA / 87
problems and ways to prevent them. This concern has in turn
lect to some innovative steps toward self-regulation.
In the television industry one of the most prominent devel-
opments of recent years has been the work of the Alcohol and
Drug Abuse Committee of the Caucus of Producers, Writers,
and Directors, a 160-member consortium of people involved in
the creation of television shows. As with many individuals, the
caucus was spurred into action by tragedy: In 1982 Natalie
Wood and William Holden died in alcohol-related accidents,
and an automobile accident caused by a drunk driver seriously
injured Mary Martin and lanes Gaynor and killed Martin's man-
ager.
A few months after these accidents the caucus issued a white
paper entitled "We've Done Some Thinking." The paper asked
whether "any of us as members of the creative community in
Hollywood unwittingly glorified the casual use of alcohol in
one of our projects? . . . The answer, we fear, is yes." According
to Larry Stewart, chairman of the caucus's Alcohol and Drug
Abuse Committee, the paper circulated widely in Hollywood.
"Our committee has attempted to bring an idea to the attention
of the creative community, and we fee! confident that that com-
munity will respond on its own in a positive way," says Stew-
art. "We think we are sensible and that our colleagues are going
to react sensibly."
The paper drew heavily on the research of Warren Breed and
lames Defoe, who had worked with such shows as "The lef-
fersons," "M.A.S.H.," "All in the Family," and "One Day at
a Time" to limit the amount of drinking shown. This process
involves working directly with the scripts to monitor the ways
in which drinking is portrayed. The white paper also inclucled
a number of suggestions for writers, producers, and directors,
such as not glamorizing alcohol, substituting other beverages
for alcohol when possible, demonstrating that people do not
have to drink to be normal, portraying critical reactions to heavy
drinking, dealing with the full range of consequences of drink-
ing, and showing that there are no miraculous cures for alco-
holism.
"We are not telling 'hove Boat' that they should not have a
bar," says Stewart. "We are not teeing 'Cheers' or 'Archie Bunker'
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SS / ALCOHOL IN AMERICA
to close down their sets because they take place in bars. But if
drinking is not germane to the story, why show it? It if is
germane, portray it, but do so with the awareness that the
people we create become role models."
Such voluntary efforts also have a place in the advertising
industry. An example is the Code of Advertising Standards
developed by the Wine Institute, a trade association of 460
California vintners. The code emphasizes promoting wine re-
sponsibly, educating consumers about wine's heritage and
moderate use, and participating in projects to reduce the misuse
of alcohol. Specific parts of the code prohibit the use of athletes
or celebrities attractive to young people, bar any suggestion of
intoxication or drinking and driving, and discourage any as-
sociation of wine with rites of passage.
All of the Wine Institute's 460 members, representing 95 per-
cent of the California wine industry, voluntarily subscribe to
the code. Furthermore, the Wine Institute has asked the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to extend these provisions
by law to all alcohol advertising.
Educational anti Training Programs
The power of the mass media, so evident in the field of
advertising, can also be turned to other purposes. In particular,
the mass media are one of the best ways to convey health-
related information about alcohol and the possible conse-
quences of clrinking. Such educational campaigns are often
mentioned as part of a comprehensive program to prevent al-
coho! problems. Their potential strengths and weaknesses are
the subject of the rest of this chapter.
Educational campaigns draw on the moral authority of the
government or a respected private organization to try to per-
suade people to drink safely or appropriately. Generally, such
programs have prestige and legitimacy in our society. However,
even after decades of experience with educational campaigns,
their effectiveness remains open to question. With some recent
and notable exceptions, there is little hard evidence to show
that past educational campaigns using the mass media have
had any significant effect. Some people seem to pay no attention
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DRINKING AND THE MASS MEDIA / 89
to the messages about health that they get through the media.
Those who do pay attention are also those most likely to have
their preexisting beliefs confirmed. For these and other reasons,
many social scientists have concluded that mass media edu-
cational campaigns are doomed to fail.
Dissenting social scientists argue that past campaigns have
been poorly planned, executed, or evaluated. They also point
out that mass media campaigns are most effective when com-
binect with other, reinforcing measures. "Given the lack of both
formative research and sufficient evaluation, it is no wonder
that previous public education campaigns aimed at reducing
the incidence of alcohol abuse have had such inconclusive re-
sults," writes John Hochheimer of Stanford University. "Proper
use of the mass media for effective dissemination of messages
is a multifaceted process that requires a great deal of planning,
~ 1
Friends Don't let friends
drive drunk.
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have to drive. Here's one way to keep your friend
alive . . .
d r n r e y o u ~ f r i e n d h o m e
U.S. Department of Transportation
Natbnal Highway lYaNk Sandy
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Suggestions for specific actions or behaviors tend to be more effective than general
admonitions in mass media educational campaigns.
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90 / ALCOHOL IN~ERICA
evaluation, and willingness to replan during the campaign if
necessary."
At the same time, not all educational campaigns have been
a failure. it is true that the most successful campaigns have
focused on other health concerns, such as smoking or heart
disease, rather than on drinking problems. Nevertheless, these
efforts can give direction to an alcohol-related campaign. One
such well-known program is the Three Community Study of
the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Project.
The Three Community Study set out to determine if state-
of-the-art mass media programming could influence the factors
associated with the risk of heart disease. The Department of
Communication at Stanford University produced more than 50
television spots and more than 100 radio spots of 10 to 60 sec-
onds' cluration, plus more than three hours of television pro-
gramming, many hours of radio programming, newspaper
columns, advertisements, and direct mail.
These messages were designed to educate people about the
risks of heart disease and to encourage them to reduce those
risks through dietary changes, giving up cigarettes, a return to
ideal weight, and programs of regular exercise. Wherever pos-
sible, the messages mentioned specific skills or techniques that
people could use to achieve these changes.
In one of the two experimental towns in central California,
the Three Community Study went beyond this mass media
approach. Either at home or in formal classes, physicians and
other health educators individually taught the people at highest
risk of heart disease some specific skills that they could use to
achieve a healthier lifestyle.
The results of the Three Community Study were striking.
After two years the people in both experimental towns had
average reductions in the overall estimated risk of heart disease
of between 16 and IS percent. In a control town the average
risk increased 6.5 percent. Overall, the people in the experi-
mental towns clid not lose weight, but the people in the control
town gained weight.
As expected, the town receiving both the mass media infor-
mation and the intensive training had the largest initial overall
reduction in risk. But by the end of two years, the town re-
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DRINKING AND THE MASS MEDIA / 91
ceiving only the mass media information had caught up with
the town that also received the personalizecl training. Still, the
training had a specific noticeable effect. In the control town and
the town receiving only the mass media information, few peo-
ple managed to quit smoking. But of the people who received
individualizes! instruction, half of those who had been smokers
quit.
There are many questions that would have to be answered
before a program similar to the Three Community Study could
be widely applied to alcohol problems. For instance, what is
the best way to scale up a relatively small program to a national
equivalent? In the Three Community Study, the organizers of
the program were highly committed. In a national program of
alcohol education, the organizations called upon to administer
the program may initially be skeptical or indifferent. Never-
theless, the combination of mass media health information and
personalized training is a promising one. Educational training
programs on alcohol would be a valuable step forward, al-
though at this stage their primary goal should be the collection
of further research data.
Lessons for Future Educational Campaigns
The Three Community Study demonstrated several impor-
tant rules that any similar program should follow. An important
set of rules concerns the messages sent through the mass media.
"A message shouic! not try to be all things to all people," writes
Hochhe~mer. "It should be targeted to a specific audience, which
involves defining who that audience is, what those people are
like, what it is we want to change, what the best strategy is to
change it, ant! what is the most efficacious method of dissem-
inating that information." This approach acknowledges "that
the audience is an equal partner in the communication pro-
cess," according to Hochheimer.
The source of the message is also important. The credibility,
attractiveness, and forcefulness of the source all influence how
much impact a message has. For instance, in some cases the
government may not have much credibility as a source of health
information, according to Hochheimer. The government's po-
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92 / ALCOHOL IN AMERICA
sition should therefore be carefully studied in designing an
educational campaign on alcohol-related problems. As another
example, the use of older celebrities like Dick Van Dyke or Art
Carney in educational campaigns about alcohol may have little
relevance to younger people.
The message itself should be specific and to the point. Re-
search shows that messages advocating a specific behavior are
better than vague admonitions. Thus the message "If your friend
is drunk at a party, take him home in his car and ask another
friend to drive behinc! to pick you up" is better than "Friends
don't let friends drive drunk," according to Hochheimer. An-
other example of a specific message is "Why not make every
third drink a soft drink at the next party."
Messages that rely on fear- such as "Drunk drivers add color
to our highways" or movies portraying the evils of alcohol or
drug addiction may backfire. If messages are too heavy-handed,
people may ignore or avoid them to avoid feeling the emotions
that such messages are supposec! to engender. People may also
see them as exaggerated and consequently dismiss less drastic
messages as equally biased.
An educational campaign should also make use of a variety
of different media. The obvious media are television, radio, and
newspapers. But there are also billboards, direct mail, maga-
zines, newsletters, films, subway and bus ads, and the insertion
of materials into paychecks. These messages shouIcl be coor-
dinated so that they reinforce each other and do not conflict.
In addition, educational campaigns should draw on the profes-
sional knowledge and skills of people trained in the behavioral
and communication sciences. Past programs that have relied
exclusively on the expertise of commercial advertisers or the
enthusiasm of local volunteer groups have generally not achieved
their desired ends.
Finally, educational campaigns must do more than just sup-
ply people with information. They must suggest specific be-
haviors and teach specific skills that enable people to make
changes that they want to make. If possible, this education can
take the form of low-key training programs. There is even an
institutional base that can support these programs local hos-
pitals and the rapidly expanding network of health mainte-
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DRINKING AND THE MASS MEDIA / 93
nance organizations. These organizations can offer individualized
training at a relatively low cost. They have the potential to make
it relatively easy and, perhaps more important, relatively unem-
barrassing for people to learn ways to moderate their drinking.
With regard to the overall prospects for eclucational programs
dealing with alcohol-related problems, the pane} concluded,
". . . Where is potential in these areas, but it does not lie where
we have commonly looked. It is not exclusively in the schools
or in mass media advertising. It may be in information and
training programs sponsored by universities and health main-
tenance organizations focusing on the health risks of some
drinking practices and teaching techniques for modifying per-
sonal drinking habits."
The Conflict Between Education and Other Media Messages
As we saw in the first part of this chapter, educational pro-
grams using mass media may have a formidable barrier to over-
come. They must rely at least in part on the media to convey
their messages. Yet these same media also transmit many mes-
sages that implicitly or explicitly glamorize drinking. As a re-
sult, says Lawrence WalIack, alcohol educational campaigns
"exist in a generally hostile environment rich with messages
supporting and encouraging the use and misuse of alcohol. The
major contributor to this antieducation environment is clearly
alcoholic beverage advertising. The massive amount of mis-
leading information being disseminated through alcoholic bev-
erage advertising acts as a barrier to the success of community-
based programs and larger public information efforts. Televi-
sion programming is also a great, though inadvertent, contrib-
utor to this vast reservoir of misinformation."
One measure of the relative strengths of advertising and al-
coho! education is the resources devoted to each. In a recent
year the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
spent $~.4 million to provide information on alcohol to the
public. Even if each of the states spent $1 million on similar
efforts, the combined resources for public alcohol education-
about $60 million—would equal only half of the advertising
budgets of either the Anheuser-Busch or Miller brewing
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94 / ALCOHOL IN ~ERICA
companies. Compared with the over $l billion spent yearly
on alcohol advertising, these public expenditures are almost
. · · it- .
nslgnl~lcant.
There are several ways to narrow this gap. One is to increase
funds for public alcohol education. Voluntary, self-initiated re-
straints, such as those advocated by the Caucus of Producers,
Writers, and Directors and the Wine Institute, are a second
approach. A third approach involves governmental legislation
or regulation. This last approach, says Stanley Cohen, "requires
a cohesive and realistic strategy. The odds are not attractive,
but they are not impossible."
WalIack suggests two governmental policies that he sees as
"a starting point for further discussion." The first is to withdraw
the business tax deduction for advertising alcoholic beverages.
An estimated $350 million of the $1 billion spent on alcohol
advertising is now declucted from corporate taxes. Waliack's
second suggestion is to levy a 10 percent tax on alcoholic bev-
erage advertising to fund educational campaigns. This would
be a way "to fund advertisements that show the other side of
the alcoholic beverage story," he says.
Compared with the number of messages in the mass media
that promote or glamorize drinking, an eclucational campaign
can seem "a slim reed," in the words of Stanley Cohen. But
an educational campaign does not have to act alone. Such cam-
paigns can reinforce the many other forces in society that tend
to moderate drinking. They can draw attention to laws that
prohibit specific actions like drinking and driving. Or they can
be a vehicle for some other way of preventing alcohol problems,
such as individualized training. As part of a multifaceted pro-
gram of prevention, educational campaigns can be both easier
to get started and more effective once they are launched.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
educational campaigns
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