Are ‘soap operas’ driving young people to drink?
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By Alex Barker
There is strong evidence to suggest that exposure to alcohol content or advertising in the media increases uptake and use in adolescents. Alcohol content in the media normalises these behaviours for young people, and young people may imitate behaviours of influential others, such as celebrities.
In the UK, TV programmes are regulated by the Ofcom Broadcasting Code which protects under-18s by restricting alcohol use in programmes made for children and preventing the glamorisation of alcohol use in programmes broadcast before the 9pm watershed or in programmes likely to be viewed by children. Furthermore, ‘paid-for’ product placement of alcohol products is prohibited.
Despite this, alcohol content is widely shown on TV, and our previous research, looking at alcohol content on television, identified that soap operas, or ‘soaps’, contained a lot of alcohol content, and are shown before the 9pm watershed when children and young people are likely to be watching TV with thei...
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