Alcohol and the News: an investigation of Australian news media reports about alcohol policies, expert priorities and audience understandings

Abstract

Background Alcohol is associated with a significant societal burden of harm and news media coverage of the issue can affect how different audiences think about potential policy solutions and who is responsible for responding. This thesis investigates relationships between news coverage of alcohol, expert policy advocacy, and audience responses to policy proposals. Method Five analyses were used, including three content and framing analyses: (i) five years of television news reports about alcohol; (ii) newspaper and television coverage of the 2008-09 ‘alcopops tax’; (iii) newspaper coverage of alcohol advertising restrictions; and two qualitative analyses focused on alcohol pricing and alcohol advertising restrictions: (iv) in-depth interviews with 21 alcohol policy experts, and (v) eight focus groups discussions with young people, parents of young people, and Australian adults. Results Alcohol is covered extensively by Australian television and newspapers, with emphases on harms to health. The ‘alcopops tax’ generated significant news coverage, yet evidence of its effectiveness was relegated to the background, while coverage of alcohol advertising restrictions was relatively limited. Alcohol experts appeared frequently in news coverage and agreed that alcohol’s price and promotion are policy priorities, with some important differences concerning policy implementation. Audience members expressed concern about alcohol’s harms and supported alcohol policies in principle, but remained unconvinced that existing policies have the capacity to effectively deal with the ‘alcohol problem’. Conclusion News media advocacy has effectively established that alcohol poses problems. Future media advocacy would benefit from resolving policy differences in order to successfully convince the public of the need for introducing new proposals.