Journal o! Studies on Alcohol, Vol. 38, No. 11, 1977

Drinking on Television; a Preliminary Study

with Emphasis on Method Warren K. Garlington,Ph.D. SUMMAaY.A proceduredesignedto assess the ]requenctjo[ alcohol-relatedevents in television shows and commercials is described.

The effect of televisionprogramsand commercials (advertisements) on behavior has been a topic of heated debate in recent years. Prime attention has been devotedto the relationshipbetween televisionvio-

lence and aggression, particularlyamongyoungpeople.An annotated bibliographypublishedin 1971 lists 550 publicationsdealingwith the issue (1). Concernaboutthe effectof cigaretteadvertisingon cigaretteconsumption led to the banning of cigarette advertising on television in the

hopethis would lead to a decreasein the numberof new smokersand lead presentsmokersto quit (2). A similarconcernis developingwith the possibleeffectsof television on drinkingratesand development of problemdrinking.Recently,there has been talk of banning beer and wine advertisingon televisionand a Senatecommitteehas held specialhearingsarguingthe possibleeffects of televisionon American drinking habits.2

In the pastyearor two the focusof attentionhaswidenedfrom advertisementsto the contentof televisionprograms.A recentsurveyby the ChristianScienceMonitora concluded that "eightypercentof the regular prime time TV showssurveyed[over a 2-monthperiod] depictedscenes involvingalcohol." Modeling theory would suggestthat constantexposureto television programsextollingthe virtues(or dangers)of alcoholconsumption might well influencedrinkinghabits.Bandura (3) presentsa convincingcase for the stronginfluenceon behaviorof observingthe behaviorof others, especiallywhen that behavioris seento be pleasurableand strongly rewarded.He pointsout that an observedmodelmight, in effect,make • From Alcohol Studies (Departmentsof Psychologyand Sociology),Washington State University,Pullman,WA 99164. Supportedin part by WSU grant 10D 3905 O002.

Receivedfor publication:23 April 1976. Revision: 18 January 1977. • The AlcoholismReport, 22 August 1975, pp. 1-2 and 12 March 1976, pp. 2-3. a Reportedin The Columbian(Vancouver,WA), 10 July 1975. 2199

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JOIo-BNAL OF STUDIES ON ALCOHOL

it acceptableto behave in a particular manner,e.g., to get drunk, use alcoholto solveproblems,etc., and hence influencebehaviorin a particular

direction.

Leventhal (4), however, presentsevidencethat the mass media, ineluding television,have little effect on behavior except under special circumstances. The most important specialcircumstances include social isolationof the viewer. People tend to be influenced by the rules and normsof their socialgroup. If no suchgroup exists,then the messagepresentedby the media may fall on fertile ground. If televisioncan under certain circumstances influence drinking behavior,informationis neededas to the actualfrequencyor rate of drinking-relatedeventsportrayed on televisiontoday. The present study is exploratoryin nature and attempts to establisha kind of baseline on the rate of drinkingeventsto be found on two typesof televisionshows -"soap operas "4 and "gameshows."Theseprogramsare shownin the late morningand afternoonon weekdayson all three nationalnetworks and hence provide a continuousbarrage of entertainment for people who spendmost of their time at home during the day. Both kinds of programsare aimedprimarily at housewives. A recentsurveyof a multitude of eventsoccurringon soapoperassuggests that the programsare directedat an audiencemade up of women18 to 49 yearsof age (5). If Leventhal's(4) analysisis applied,it may be hypothesizedthat any undueinfluenceof televisionportrayalof drinkingwould mostaffectthe sociallyisolatedhousewife. The presentstudy usesan "interval count"procedureto attempt to assessthe rates of both alcoholic and nonalcoholicbeverage-related eventsin televisioncommercialsand programs.The primary focusis on soapoperas,but for comparativepurposessomedata are presentedon game shows. METItOD$

Observers

Threeundergraduates and onegraduatestudent,all women,actedas trained paid observers. •

The Viewing Schedule Most of the observations took place during July and August 1975. A few additionalobservationswere completedfrom Septemberto November 1975. Schedules were arrangedto provideoverlapoccasionally at differentperiods throughoutthe broadcastday, in order to samplereliability between observersat varioustimes. A total of 40 reliability sessions, when 2 observers • Soap operasare daily continuingdramas,derivingtheir name from the fact that many are sponsoredby soap companies.

'I thank Maria Krasnec,PamelaLucido, SusanMartin and BarbaraBair for their many hours of painstakingobservations.

BRmF REPORTS

2201

independentlywatchedthe samehalf-hourperiod on the samechannel,were included.

Three Spokanetelevisionstations (KREM, Channel2, AmericanBroadcasting Company;KXLY, Channel4, ColumbiaBroadcasting System;and KHQ, Channel 6, National BroadcastingCompany) were viewed from sign-onto signoff each day of the week. The schedulewas completedover a number of weeks, but each hour of each day on all three stationswas representedin the completeschedule.Only the soapoperasand game showsare reported on here.

RecordingProcedure Each 30-minute period was divided into 1-min intervals.At the end of each minute, the observerrecordedany target event that had occurred.The scorefor any half-hourperiod was simply a count of the number of times the target event was recorded,in the mannerdescribedbelow. Row 1: Any drinking of or referenceto alcoholicbeverageswas recorded in this row. The type of beveragewas designatedby B for beer, W for wine, M for a mixed drink (distilled spirits), S for a straight (unmixed) drink and D for unidentifiedalcoholicdrinks.All commercialswere indicatedby a circle around the symbol. The same recordingcriteria were used whether or not the commercialwas advertisingan alcoholicbeverage.More than one entry could be made in an interval, e.g., if beer and wine were portrayed,a B and W were recorded in one interval.

Row 2: Any event referring to nonalcoholicdrinks was recordedin this row with a check mark. Type of drink was not recorded. A circle around a check mark indicated a commercial.

Row 3: The type of event was indicated in this row, i.e., a verbal reference (R), a drinking scene (D), or backgrounddrinking (B). Background drinkingwas defined as drinking not directly involved in the main point of the program.For example,if a coupleentereda restaurantfor dinnerand wine xvasportrayedon tablesof other diners,it was recordedas B, whereasif the coupleorderedwine it wasrecordedas D. Row 4: This row designatedthe setting in which the drinking event occurred, i.e., bar or cocktaillounge (B), home (H), or other (O). Row 5: In the last row an attempt was made to record the reason for drinking-R for relief ("I really neededthat!"), H for hospitality ("Come on up for a drink"), C for celebration("Congratulations on your raise; I'll buy

you a drink!"), and N if no reasonwas apparent.These data are not reportedherebecauseof difficultiesin obtainingobserveragreement. Reliabilittt

Forty half-hour periodswere recordedby two independentobservers.Reliability was calculatedby the formula,Agree/Agree + Disagree.An agreement was counted if both raters indicated that an event had occurred in a

givenminute,plusor minus1. The 1-minuteleewaywasusedbecauseit was difficult for the raters to begin a half-hourperiod of ratingsat preciselythe same second.Raters did not know when a reliability sessionwas occurring. Intervals in which neither rater recorded an event were not counted since

theseintervalsmade up over 90g of the intervalsand this would spuriously raisethe reliability.Each half-hourperiod in which neither observerrecorded

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JOURNALOF STUDIESON ALCOHOL

a drinking event ;vas countedas one agreementto give some credit for this negativeaccuracy.Over-all reliability usingthis procedure;vas .77. For those half-hourperiodsin which data from two observerswere available,the agreements plus half of the instanceswhere only one obse•werreported that an event had occurredwere used on the assumptionthat each rarer was correct half

the time.

i•ESULTS

The data presentedin this preliminary report comparethe rate per minute and rate per program of drink-relatedeventsduring the soap operasand game showsobserved. The programsobservedare presentedin Chart 1; each program was viewed 5 times, once each weekday. Breakdownsare not given by network or programbecausethe 5-day sampleis too small to be representativeof individual programs.However, the total program viewings (79 half-hourperiodsof soapoperasand 60 of game shows) probably are representative of the 2 typesof programsas far as drinking-related events are concerned.

Table i summarizesthe results. The soap operas averaged almost three 1-min intervalsper 21-min program during which an alcohol-related event occurred.Game showsaveragedonly one-tenththat amount. Alcohol was presentedinfrequentlyin commercialsduring either type of program, but soft drinks were shown often. The use of soft drinks occurred often during soap operas, but rarely during game shows. It is necessaryto look at the rate-per-minutemeasureto comparethe programsand the commercialsdirectly. During the soap operas commerciMsinvolving alcohol occurredat only about one tenth the program rate, but the rate xvasabout the same for both programsand CHAaT 1.--ProgramsViewed, by Network and Type Soap Operas ABC

All My Children Ryan'sHope

CBS

Love of Life • The Youngand the Restless

NBC

Days of our Lives (1 hr) AnotherWorld (1 hr)

One Life to Live

Search for Tomorrow

Somerset

General Hospital

As the World Turns

The Doctors

The Edge of Night The Guiding Light Game Shows ABC

Showoffs You Don't Say Let's Make a Deal $10,000 Pyramid

CBS

Gambit Tattletales The Price is Right Match Came

a Only four viewings before going off the air.

NBC

Celebrity Sweepstakes Wheel of Fortune High Rollers Hollywood Squares

B•mr

•EPOI•TS

2203

TABLE1.-Average Rate of Occurrencesof Alcohol. and Soft Drink-Related Events on Soap Operasand Game Shows' SOAP OPERAS

GAME SHOWS

(N = 79)

(N -- 60)

Programs Alcohol

Total

events

236

2.987 0.142

R/P R/M

18

0.300 0.014

Soft Drinks Total

events

R/P R/M

205

2.595 0.124

9

0.150 0.007

Commercials Alcohol Total events

R/C R/M

11

0.139 0.015

8

0,133 0.015

Soft Drinks Total

events

R/C R/M a Data are presented as rate per program (R/P), cial (R/C).

146

1.848 0.205 rate per minute (R/M)

127

2.117 0.235 and rate per commer-

commercialson game shows,both rates being low. Soft drink commercials occurredat a much higher rate than soft drink referencesduring both soap operasand game shows. The remainder of the resultsare tentative. As the over-all category of drinking-relatedeventswas broken down into different categories, the reliability decreased.Nonetheless,the categoriesthemselveswould seemto be useful for future work assessing drinking on soap operas. Table 2 showsthe rate of occurrenceof three typesof alcohol-related events: drinking scenes,in which the plot action involvesdrinking of alcoholicbeverages;backgrounddrinking, scenesin which drinking is depicted,but is not part of the ongoingaction;and verbal referenceto drinking. Actual drinking scenesmade up more than half of the drinking-re-

lated events.Backgrounddrinking and verbal referencesto drinking occurredwith approximatelythe same frequency. Table 2 alsoshowsthe settingsin which the drinkingscenesoccurred. The home was the most popular place for alcoholuse, followed by cocktail lounges,bars or restaurants. Table 2 also showsthat straight drinks were the most popular. Un-

identifieddrinksrankedsecond,closelyfollowedby wine. Mixed drinks and beer appearedto be the leastpopularon the soapoperas.

•,•,04

JOURNALOF STUDIES ON ALCOHOL

TABLE2.--AverageRates of Occurrenceof Alcohol-RelatedEvents in Soap Operas,by Type of Event, Setting and Type of Drinka Total

Events

R/P b

R/M e

T{tpe of Event

Drinking scene Background

147 60

1.861 0.759

9.089 0.036

Verbal reference

66

0.835

0.040

83 141 16

1.051 1.785 0.203

0.050 0.085 0.010

Setting Bar Home Other

Drink Beer

11

0.139

0.007

Wine Mixed

56 24

0.709 0.304

0.034 0.014

Straight

85

1.076

0.051

Unknown

76

0.962

0.046

A total of 79 soap opera segments was viewed. Rate per program. e Rate per minute.

DISCUSSION

The informationpresentedhere is primarily a kind of baselinefor the comparisonof the prevalence of alcohol-related events on television programs.The extent,if any, to which drinking on televisioninfluences observersto increaseor begin drinking is not known. Previousresearchon televisionand violence (6) has suggestedthat

theremay be somerelationshipbetweenwhat peopleview and their later behavior.Certainly it is possiblethat depicting drinking on television in someway suggests that it is a normalpart of everydaylife and consequentlyis "all right." Bandura'stheoretical and experimentalwork (3) suggestsmodelingis an importantfactor in learning.Modeling has been shownexperimentallyto have a marked effect on youngpeople's drinkingrate in a face-to-facesituation(7, 8). The interval count techniquedescribedabove makes it possibleto get a quantitative measureof drinking-relatedevents occurringin a televisionprogram or commercial.The method as used here does not give information on the context of drinking except in a crude way. Future studiesshouldincludeinformationon how drinkingis portrayed, i.e., in a positive,negativeor neutral light. The proceduresoutlinedhere alsomake it possibleto get comparative data on soft drinks and alcoholand on commercialsversusprograms. It is a relatively simple way of monitoring any changeswhich may occur over time in the televisionportrayal of drinking. The weakestpoint in the presentstudy is the reliability of observations. Considerabletraining of observersis necessaryto achievebetter

BRIEF REPORTS

2•.05

agreementon what constitutesa drinking-relatedevent. In thosecases where one observer recorded such an event and the other did not, it

is likely that suchan event did occur,but was missedby one observer. If this is so,then the very fact that an observercan missdrinkingevents occurringin front of his eyesis a commentaryon how "normal"drinking is in our culture.

More sophisticated observationalstudiesare needednot only to define and clarify what is happeningin televisionprogramming,but also to discoverwhat effect televisiondepictionof drinking sceneshas on the viewers.

REFERENCES

1. ATKII•,C. K., MURRAY, J. 1•. andNAYMA•O. B. Television and socialbehavior; an annotatedbibliographyof researchfocusingon television's impacton children. Washington,DC; U.S. Govt Print. Off.; 1971. 2. Moss, F. E. Cigaretteads will be off the air-but .... Bull. nat. Tuberc. resp. Dis. Ass. 36: 3-6, 1970.

3. BA•Dt•RA,A. Principlesof behaviormodification.New York; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; 1969.

4. LEV•.•THAL,H. An analysisof the influenceof alcoholicbeverageadvertising on drinkingcustoms.Pp. 267-297. In: McCARTHY,R. G., ed. Alcoholeducation for classroom and community;a sourcebook for educators.New York; McGraw-Hill; 1964.

5. GOLDSEW, R. K. Throwawayhusbands,wives and lovers.Hum. Behav. 4• 64-69, 1975.

6. BAKER,R. K. and BALL, S. J. Violence and the media; a staff report to the National Commissionon the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Washington, DC; U.S. Govt Print. Off.; 1969.

7. CAt•D•LL,B. D. and MARLATT,G. A. Modelinginfluencesin socialdrinking; an experimentalanalogue.J. cons.clin. Psychol.43: 405-415, 1975. 8. GARLIl•GTOl•, W. K. and D•mcco, D. A. The effect of modeling on drinking rate. J. appl. Behav. Anal. 10: 207-211, 1977.