Alcoholism: Changing Australia's Cultural Identity
734 Words3 Pages
As a culture we aren’t comfortable with people not drinking. There I said it.
Don’t want sugar with your coffee, no problems. Decide to quit smoking, good on you. Turn down the second round of drinks on a Friday night, and be greeted by looks of sheer disgust…. seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? This has become the Australian way. We claim that drinking is a personal choice, that it’s something we have control over, when in fact it couldn’t be more opposite – it’s actually is a cultural expectation.
In Australia, alcoholism is promoted through our moving image media and has become very much a part of our cultural identity. Institutional structures such as sponsors and advertising are responsible for much of this. One of the most influential…show more content… TV shows have also been heavy influencers on youth in regards of alcohol because of the influence of televised portrayals of drinking which has been examined in experimental studies (Kotch, Coulter, and Lipsitz, 1986; Rychtarik, Fairbank, Allen, Foy, and Drabman, 1983). In both of these studies, children who were shown videotaped segments from popular television series containing drinking scenes expressed more favorable attitudes and beliefs about drinking than did children exposed to similar segments without drinking. These studies prove advertising alcohol through moving media has changed Australia’s cultural identity on alcohol. Further evidence in a recent Australian study, commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, has indicated and analysed the exposure adolescents had to alcohol advertising via metropolitan free-to-air TV in Sydney and Melbourne, and found that exposure among 13–17 year olds was only slightly less than among 18–29 year olds (almost 90%). Importantly, this indicates how we as a culture have become complacent with drinking as these stats underline even underage kids are being heavily exposed to the drinking culture of…show more content… Similar to TV shows, movies have had an extensive influence on young adolescents because of the amount of movies adolescents watch today and furthermore movies have added a positive attitude to alcohol in the way they have portrayed people getting drunk and society’s view of alcohol. Movies tend to use the persuasive technique of bandwagon in which is an appeal to persuade the audience to join in and take the action that everyone else is taking. Furthermore movies also use the technique of the common man in which advertising sponsors state drinking alcohol is just common