The influence of social media on young people’s alcohol consumption behaviors: A comparison of factors between Australia and India

April 2016
Staff: 

PhD Scholar:
Himanshu Gupta, NDRI
PhD Supervisors:
Dr Robert Tait and Dr Tina Lam, NDRI
Professor Simone Pettigrew, Curtin University

Project description: 

Advertisers have been quick to realize the potential of the internet as a means of engaging with existing customers and recruiting new consumers. Most of the research done into alcohol marketing and young people on social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter has been conducted in the USA, UK and New Zealand. There is a small, but growing body of work examining how young people engage with alcohol and (re)produce alcohol marketing messages via SNS in Australia. Most of this work examines alcohol-related content posted on Facebook. Interestingly, there is no evidence of research that has examined how alcohol marketing targets young people on YouTube and Twitter, despite the popularity of these SNS. Further, it appears that no research examining alcohol advertising via SNS has been conducted in India, an emerging alcohol market.

This study involves surveying youth exposure to alcohol marketing via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter websites, and investigating the relationship between social media use and alcohol consumption among Australian and Indian youth. The study will provide an opportunity to investigate how young people engage with such marketing practices and potential impacts of those practices on their alcohol consumption behaviours. The results of the study will be used to provide recommendations for policies on the regulation of alcohol marketing using social media in Australia and India.

The online survey will be administered to at least 400 Australian and 400 Indian respondents. Anyone aged 13-25 years, who uses social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, and has lived in Australia or India for at least 12 months, will be eligible to participate in the survey. All information collected will be confidential and anonymous.

For further information, see the survey Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/alcoholadvertisingandsocialmediahg

To complete the survey, visit:
Alcohol Advertising and Social Media Survey – for Australia
Alcohol Advertising and Social Media Survey – for India