UNDERAGE DRINKING & ADVERTISING.   Term Paper ID:24586 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Argues against ads & other factors which encourage drinking by minors.... More...

5 Pages / 1125 Words 5 sources, 16 Citations, TURABIAN Format $20.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Argues against ads & other factors which encourage drinking by minors. Paper Introduction: This paper is an argument against the use of advertising to encourage underage drinking. Current efforts to cut back or entirely eliminate advertising for cigarettes have focused public attention on the role that such advertising plays in creating new smokers and convincing minors to break the laws that ban them from buying, possessing, and using cigarettes. Alcohol abuse presents a problem just as serious and more immediately deadly. While the long-term detriments of smoking have been well documented, alcohol abuse kills significantly more young people. Advertising plays an important role in increasing the appeal of drinking, and recent moves to put hard liquor ads on television are especially disturbing. When 20-year-old Louisiana State University student Benjamin Wynne died of alcohol poisoning after an all-night drinking binge Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. [9]Krauthammer. The same kind of attention that has forcedthe tobacco industry to consider its effect on underage smokers must now befocused on the problem of underage drinking. Without such attention,advertising will continue to encourage young people to abuse alcohol, withoften-fatal consequences. [12]Cohen, 55-56. However, as long as alcohol manufacturers are permitted to continueto advertise their products widely and without intensive consideration ofthe effects of their advertising on minors, alcohol abuse will continue totake its toll on young people. While beer and winecontinue to be heavily advertised on TV, the hard liquor industry hasmaintained a voluntary 6 -year ban on broadcasting ads on TV. Worsnop, "Alcohol Advertising: Should Liquor BeAdvertised on TV?" CQ Researcher 7 (14 March 1997): 222. Federal Communications CommissionerRachelle Chong argues that deceptive advertising is the domain of theFederal Trade Commission, not the FCC; FCC Chairman Reed Hundt disagrees,interpreting his organization's mandate more broadly.[11] Whatever the FCC decides, alcohol advertisers continue to targetunderage drinkers through a variety of sources. Many beer ads inparticular have a juvenile tone which emphasizes the youthful fun of havinga good belt; while these are primarily designed to highlight the fun adultscan expect from drinking beer, the secondary effect is to make drinkingseem like an acceptable juvenile activity. Part of the problem concernsdisagreements about which federal agencies have jurisdiction over deceptiveadvertising or ads aimed at minors. [4]Richard L. Current efforts to cut back or entirely eliminateadvertising for cigarettes have focused public attention on the role thatsuch advertising plays in creating new smokers and convincing minors tobreak the laws that ban them from buying, possessing, and using cigarettes. Legislators across the country continue to strengthen laws againstdrunken drivers, especially those whose drinking kills or injures others.Increased awareness raised by groups such as MADD and recent news storiesabout campus deaths attributed to alcohol poisoning have helped to focusattention on the seriousness of the problem. While the legal drinking age has risen to 21 everywhere in thecountry, alcohol abuse by minors continues to be a major problem inAmerica. College newspapers receivemore than a third of their advertising revenue from ads related to alcohol,including ads for off-campus bars hawking what Adam Cohen terms "binge-friendly promotions."[12] Print advertising remains a significant portionof the alcohol industry's budget; though such ads are rarely accepted innon-college publications aimed primarily at youths, many general-interestmagazines reach this market and encourage young people to drink well beforethey have reached legal age. [16]Worsnop, 23 .----------------------- 1 A recent study reported that 35 percent of fourth gradershad been pressured by their classmates to try drinking; by the time theyreached sixth grade, 49 percent had been pressured.[16] However,advertising also plays a significant role in encouraging underage drinking,frequently reinforcing the encouragement of classmates. "Alcohol Advertising: Should Liquor Be Advertised on TV?" CQ Researcher 7 (14 March 1997): 219-239.----------------------- [1]Adam Cohen, "Battle of the Binge," Time, 8 September 1997, 54. College campuses "are among the nation's most alcohol-drenchedinstitutions."[3] At least six on-campus deaths in the last year have beenblamed on excessive drinking, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)notes, "Binge drinking is arguably the Number One public health hazard andthe primary source of preventable morbidity and mortality for the more than6 million full-time college students in America."[4] Alcohol kills and injures many young people who themselves do noteven drink. [5]Ibid., 224. [8]Christina Merrill and Judy Warner, "Spirited Debate: Liquor Ads onAir," ADWEEK 37, no. [1 ]Ibid. While the long-term detriments of smoking have been welldocumented, alcohol abuse kills significantly more young people.Advertising plays an important role in increasing the appeal of drinking,and recent moves to put hard liquor ads on television are especiallydisturbing. However, theDistilled Spirits Council announced in 1996 that it would drop the ban.Seagrams was the first member of the council to express interest inadvertising its products on the air; to date, the primary radio andtelevision networks have declined to accept liquor ads, but advertisers areexploring new media outlets, such as cable TV and the internet. Beer advertising is especially at fault, since thistype of ad has become so closely associated with sports programming, viewedas avidly by underage audiences as by the adults that such advertisingpurports to target. [15]Cohen, 56. BibliographyCohen, Adam. 26 (3 June 1997): 18-19.Krauthammer, Charles. Cohen quotessociologist David Hanson: "By setting a high drinking age, what we haveinadvertently done is say that drinking is an adult activity, and thatmakes it especially appealing to younger people."[13] Advertisingaggravates the appeal. [13]Cohen, 56. 45 (4 November 1996): 29. Krauthammer asks, "Why, then, do the Bud frogs get toplay the Super Bowl while Joe Camel goes the way of the Marlboro Man?"[14] Critics also contend that banning alcohol on campuses is ineffectivebecause it tends to encourage students to drink at private, off-campusparties and in nearby bars where owners are less than diligent aboutchecking I.D.s. "The New Prohibitionism." Time, 6 October 1997, 112.Merrill, Christina and Judy Warner. 45 (4 November 1996): 28-32.Worsnop, Richard L. [3]Ibid., 55. Harvard School of Public Health Professor William DeJongargues, "You can have a perfect program on campus, but if you don't doanything about the liquor store across the street that sells to minors orthe bar that serves intoxicated students, you haven't solved theproblem."[15] Peer pressure remains a strong reason why youngsters try alcohol forthe first time. A study in 199 concluded that 56 percent of students enrolled injunior and senior high school "say alcohol advertising encourages them todrink."[9] Charles Krauthammer, in an editorial arguing that alcoholadvertising should receive the same intensive scrutiny currently aimed atthe tobacco industry, observes, "Joe Camel has been banished forever, butthose beloved Budweiser frogs - succeeded by even cuter Budweiser lizards -keep marching along, right into the consciousness of every TV-watching kidin the country."[1 ] One of the primary arguments employed to end the useof the "Joe Camel" cartoon character to sell cigarettes was that thecharacter appealed to young people who were not yet old enough to purchaseor smoke cigarettes legally. Alcohol abuse presents a problem just as serious and more immediatelydeadly. [6]Charles Krauthammer, "The New Prohibitionism," Time, 6 October1997, 112. "FCC: The War Within." ADWEEK 38, no. [2]Ibid. "Battle of the Binge." Time, 8 September 1997, 54-56Fitzgerald, Nora. [14]Krauthammer, 112. The effects of the historic settlements secured from the tobaccoindustry in June 1997 that included the permanent ban on the Joe Cameladvertising campaign are still being studied. Surgeon General observes that lifeexpectancy has improved over the past 75 years for every age group inAmerica except 15- to 24-year-olds. This paper is an argument against the use of advertising to encourageunderage drinking. When 2 -year-old Louisiana State University student Benjamin Wynnedied of alcohol poisoning after an all-night drinking binge with members ofhis fraternity, the tragedy focused attention on the problem of alcoholabuse on college campuses in the United States.[1] An autopsy determinedthat Wynne's blood-alcohol level was six times that of the state's legalintoxication limit. The death rate for this group hasrisen over the past 2 years; the leading cause of death in this group isattributed to drunk and drugged driving, including passenger deaths and thedeaths of innocent bystanders.[5] Alcohol is estimated to cause 1 , deaths a year in the United States in all age groups; 41 percent of alltraffic fatalities in the country in 1996 were alcohol related,[6] andalcohol-related crashes cost more than $5 billion annually, including theexpense of pain, suffering, and lost quality of life.[7] College students spend $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, a totalgreater than that spent on soft drinks, milk, juice, tea, coffee, andtextbooks combined.[8] Affluent students with considerable disposableincome represent a lucrative market for wine, beer, and hard liquormanufacturers, even if such sales are often illegal. [11]Fitzgerald, 19. LSU had already been rated among the "top ten partyschools" by the Princeton Review,[2] a list that covers the country,including schools from Colorado to Florida to New England. [7]Nora Fitzgerald, "FCC: The War Within," ADWEEK 38, no. "Spirited Debate: Liquor Ads on Air." ADWEEK 37, no. Where on-campus advertising continues to reach studentsand makes drinking an appealing activity, campus-wide bans are fighting alosing battle. 26 (3 June1997): 18. A report by the U.S. Some critics argue that the country-wide movement to raise the legalage for drinking to 21 contributes to the problem. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.