Alcohol and Tobacco in Entertainment Content: A Content Analysis of Music Videos and TV Series in France

References to alcohol and tobacco are increasingly common in the content of entertainment programming popular with youth, especially music videos and TV series.  Given the potential for these embedded messages to influence listeners’ beliefs about and attitudes toward substance use, it is important to keep track of the nature of these messages. This research documents for the first time the prevalence and characteristics of visual and auditory references to alcohol and tobacco in the most popular music videos and television series amongst youth in France. 

The dataset consists of the top 50 music videos during a week in September 2013 and 180 episodes across the 14 TV series most watched by youth 15-19 in a year period from September 2012 to June 2013. Coding of the materials was conducted by two trained coders following the rules of content analysis, with 25% of the overall sample double-coded to ensure consistent coding and reliability assessed via interclass coefficients.

At the time of submission, the coding and analyses of the music videos content are completed and coding of all TV episodes is completed. The findings of the TV series’ content analysis will be ready for presentation at the conference in May 2015. The music video results reveal a wide presence of substance messages: 60% of videos include alcohol messages, 22% tobacco and 18% show both. Actual brands are present in 22% of the music videos, either in visual appearances or mentioned in the lyrics, providing evidence of advertisers’ influence in the content of entertainment media.  Overall, music videos communicate positive messages both about drinking and about smoking.  Tobacco, in particular, is linked to aspirational images, such as relaxation, power and male domination. We also note the rising presence of e-cigarette images in the foreground of music videos and its association with aspirational characters.

In line with this year’s conference theme of “Integrating Prevention Science and Public Policy,” we draw recommendations regarding the need to continually monitor and correct the potential influence of substance messages embedded in entertainment content.