Citation

Lemmens PH, Vaeth PA, Greenfield TK. Am. J. Public Health 1999; 89(10): 1555-1560.

Affiliation

Department of Medical Sociology, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, American Public Health Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10511839

PMCID

PMC1508794

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the portrayal of alcohol-related issues in the print media in the United States during the 7-year period bracketing implementation of the US alcohol warning label act in November 1988. METHODS: All articles that appeared from 1985 to 1991 in 5 national newspapers and that were indexed as dealing with beverage alcohol were identified. Content analysis of a 15% sample of these articles allowed an in-depth assessment of the conceptualization of alcohol in the US print media. RESULTS: A slight decrease in articles related to alcoholism was offset by an increase in articles about the more general health-related effects of alcohol. The warning label act received little attention. Most articles portrayed alcohol neutrally or negatively, using information from government sources. CONCLUSIONS: Portrayal of alcohol in the US print media has changed in recent decades. A general shift noted as early as the 1960s has increasingly emphasized public health issues and deemphasized clinical aspects of alcoholism. This has been accompanied by a continuing shift away from a biopsychological definition of alcohol-related behavior to a definition stressing external environmental factors.

Language: en