Year

2016

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Education

Abstract

Australian children are exposed and receptive to an abundence of multimedia advertising for alcohol. Exposure occurs through numerous advertising avenues during sport games and on YouTube, billboards and merchandise. This high level of exposure is concerning given that children’s attitudes towards drinking, intentions to drink and drinking behaviours are impacted by alcohol advertising. Considering the significant harms caused by underage drinking including, impaired memory and brain functioning, injuries, risky sexual behaviour and self harm, children’s exposure and receptivity to alcohol advertising is an important matter to address. One approach to dealing with this issue is alcohol media literacy (AML) education. AML programs have demonstrated positive results for increasing ability to deconstruct alcohol advertisements, increasing understanding of advertising’s persuasive intent and lowering intentions to drink. However the majority of AML programs have been developed, implemented and evaluated in the United States, and are therefore culturally relevant to that region. There is an absence of AML programs that have been developed for an Australian context, with specific attention paid to the unique Australian alcohol advertising landscape. Furthermore, there is an absence of programs that have focussed on the broad range of multimodal advertisements that students are exposed to, rather than focussing solely or primarily on print and TV advertisements.

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.