Search results

This paper explores the impact of a suite of alcohol culture change interventions implemented by Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. The interventions were designed to change the alcohol culture at a bi-annual nation-wide university multi-sport competition known as Uni Nationals. This study aims to understand the critical success factors of the alcohol culture change initiatives that were developed by the university and implemented as part of a broader set of institutional practices.

A qualitative research design utilised in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nine Uni Nationals student team leaders. In total, two group interviews and four individual interviews were conducted with student team leaders who participated in the Uni Nationals. The interview transcripts were coded and themed. The themes were further refined and interpreted into a narrative. A total of two transcripts were independently coded by the first two authors. Discordant coding was flagged and discussed until a consensus was achieved. The remaining interviews were coded by the first author and discussed with the second author to ensure consistency. A socio-ecological framework was used to understand perceived changes to alcohol culture.

Student leaders were aware of and felt supported by the university-wide approach to changing the culture of Uni Nationals. Overall, the qualitative study indicated that students were positive about the alcohol culture change interventions. The leadership training that engaged team leaders in interactive activities had the greatest impact. Student leaders found the targeted messages, mocktail events and Chef de Mission (CdM) less effective cultural change strategies. However, they helped to establish expectations of students in this setting where a heightened focus on sport was associated with higher alcohol consumption.

While there has been growing academic interest in exploring “drinking cultures”, there has been relatively little focus on alcohol culture of university students at sporting events. The paper contributes to addressing this gap by shedding light on the impact of a group of interventions on the drinking culture of the Uni Nationals subculture.

This study aims to explore the barriers that prevent students from moderating their drinking by comparing attitudes towards moderation in a wet (New Zealand) and dry (Vietnam) drinking culture and examines whether these barriers can be understood by applying an ecological framework.

A qualitative survey involving a written vignette was conducted with a sample of 226 and 277 undergraduates from New Zealand and Vietnam, respectively. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

The analysis reveals that students perceive several barriers to moderate drinking at the intrapersonal level (e.g. positive attitude towards drinking), interpersonal level (e.g. peer pressure) and environmental level (e.g. socialising activities), suggesting that an ecological framework is useful for understanding drinking cultures. The response variations between the two countries provide novel insights into cultural differences in students’ perceptions, with external factors being more important and influential in the wet culture and internal influences being of more concern in the dry culture.

The findings highlight that students in the wet drinking culture do not take personal responsibility for their drinking and suggest that social marketing should move beyond individualistic approaches and towards the disruption of drinking cultures/practices, in pursuit of a healthier drinking culture.

This study provides novel insights into the barriers and facilitators of moderating drinking. Further, the findings demonstrate the value of a holistic ecological framework for understanding student drinking cultures. The comparison between two diverse cultures revealed how insights from one culture can help to understand deep-seated practices and meanings in another.

This paper aims to investigate the cultural meanings of excessive drinking in three different countries with different levels of alcohol use chosen as case studies of wider geographies representing Northern (Denmark), Southern (Italy) and Eastern (Estonia) Europe.

Data were collected according to the Reception Analytical Group Interview method, using video clips as stimuli to enhance comparability. Eight online focus groups were organized in each country for a total number of 128 participants. Symbolic boundaries defining what drinking patterns are socially acceptable were then analysed to look at cross-national variations.

Results show how different conceptualizations of excessive drinking persist, although a convergence process among drinking patterns is also observed, which suggests that differences mainly depend on meanings and values attributed to intoxication. These are both rooted in the traditional drinking cultures and affected by ongoing social and economic change processes.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability, even at country level, as there are differences also within the same drinking culture; however, addressing these differences was beyond the scope of the present study, which aimed to contribute to understanding persisting differences in European drinking culture despite different drivers seem to act for globalization of drinking habits.

The paper includes implications for the development of tailored and effective prevention messages, considering rooted attitudes and cultural values attached to drinking and drunkenness in different European geographies, which are also related to conceptualizations of risks and pleasure.

This paper fulfils an identified need to understand persisting differences in alcohol-related behaviours and outcome in different European countries emerging from quantitative data.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate young female consumers' motivations and perceptions of their alcohol consumption in the context of the changing drinking culture among women.

All the data were collected on a university campus in Poland. The research was conducted in two phases, using two research methods: consumer diaries and consumer collages. In Phase 1, purposive sampling was used to establish a group of five female students, all aged 22, who were asked to keep individual written diaries. In Phase 2, consumer collages were prepared and interpreted by four groups consisting of 24 female students.

Both sets of data were thematically analysed, and the emerging themes were divided into two major issues: drinking motives and control and limits.

This research is limited by a small sample recruited from one university, and the indicative findings should be used in further research.

Better understanding of female students' drinking culture will help to develop more targeted and effective policies and social marketing programmes to prevent further rise in alcohol consumption among female students.

This research contributes to the existing literature by deepening our understanding of the unique characteristics of female undergraduate students' drinking, and identifying the areas of convergence between male and female alcohol consumption. It also explores the motivations behind these convergence processes and highlights areas in which differences between genders are still strong.

Purpose – This chapter illustrates how female university kendo club members participate in kendo-related hegemonic drinking in formal (heterosocial) and informal (homosocial) club settings. An alternative perspective on gender relations and identity politics in Japan is outlined in this chapter by describing the significance of hegemonic drinking for female kendo club members within homosocial spaces.

Methodology – As a participant-observer, an ethnographic method was applied for an 18-month period as a quasi-member of a Japanese Sports University Kendo Club. Key to accessing the female members' lived experience was the primary author's participation in daily training and the consumption of alcohol in various kendo spaces. The data discussed in this chapter were collected via semi-structured interviews, daily self-reflexive descriptive field notes and ethnographic interviews.

Findings – Hegemonic drinking practices in heterosocial university kendo club spaces encompass networking opportunity, transference of knowledge, and fortitude building, all of which are systemized to support the advancement of male members. Although female members are relatively obscured in heterosocial spaces, women mimic and engage in hegemonic drinking practices in homosocial settings to substantiate meaning to their membership.

Research limitations/implication – Research that engages with the intersection of sport and gender needs to consider aspects of social interaction not only of the physical component of the sport but also the other day-to-day activities related to it. The examination of women and kendo-related hegemonic drinking in this chapter provides an insightful perspective and highlights the value of the ethnographic method in unexplored places of enquiry integral to researching physical cultures and body politics in Japan.

Concerns about underage drinking have led to calls for a UK ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport. Such a ban would have severe financial consequences for many sports, so should not be implemented without thorough consideration of its likely effectiveness. This study investigating the alcohol consumption intentions of 14 and 15 year olds showed that boys who were involved in sport were more likely both to drink alcohol and to get drunk, with awareness of sponsorship enhancing the likelihood of these behaviours. Girls involved in sport, however, showed more negative attitudes than their peers towards alcohol. It is argued that boys involved in sport are socialised into a traditional masculine alcohol and sports culture, which is reinforced by sponsorship. Evidence from studies on tobacco sponsorship suggests that health-related marketing communications and the use of low-alcohol or non-alcohol brands for sports sponsorship could be more effective than a ban in changing the culture.

Social marketing initiatives designed to address the UK's culture of unhealthy levels of drinking among young adults have achieved inconclusive results to date. The paper aims to investigate the gap between young people's perceptions of alcohol consumption and those of government agencies who seek to influence their behaviour set within a contextualist framework.

The authors present empirical evidence from a major study that suggests that the emphasis of recent campaigns on individual responsibility may be unlikely to resonate with young drinkers. The research included a meaning‐based and visual rhetoric analysis of 261 ads shown on TV, in magazines, on billboards and on the internet between 2005 and 2006. This was followed by 16 informal group discussions with 89 young adults in three locations.

The research identified the importance of the social context of young people's drinking. The research reveals how a moral position has been culturally constructed around positioning heavy drinking as an individual issue with less regard to other stakeholders and how the marketing agents function in this environment. Calls to individual responsibility in drinking are unlikely to succeed in the current marketing environment.

The qualitative research was limited to three geographical locations with young adults between the ages of 18 and 25.

The authors explore implications for social marketing theory and for UK alcohol policy. In particular, the authors suggest that the social norms surrounding young people's drinking need to be acknowledged and built into “sensible” social marketing campaigns. The authors suggest that shame, fear and guilt appeals should be replaced with more constructive methods of ensuring young people's safety when they drink.

From the theoretical perspective of contextualism, the paper brings together empirical research with young adults and a critical analysis of recent social marketing campaigns within the commercial context of a “culture of intoxication”. It provides both a critique of social marketing in a neo‐liberal context and recognition of issues involved in excessive alcohol consumption.

This study examined aspects of the work environment, which may impact on individual police officers’ risk of harm from alcohol consumption. A self report survey containing demographic questions, the AUDIT and questions relating to perceived control over the job, overtime, pressure, boredom and job satisfaction was completed by 67 per cent of officers in an Australian state police service. The results of the current study indicate that gender, age and marital status, are individual risk factors for problem drinking, as has been shown in previous research. Within the policing context, years of service, job satisfaction, perceived control within the job and being an operational officer, also emerged as significant predictors of at risk alcohol consumption patterns. Findings further suggest that there is a strong norm of drinking at work or after a shift, which suggests a culture of acceptance of drinking within the workplace. This acceptance is strongly predictive of both risk of alcohol dependency and negative consequences from drinking within the police service. This study suggests directions for future research, which may lead to the introduction of informed interventions within the police service that could reduce officers’ risk of harm from alcohol consumption.

This paper seeks to extend the development of the historical accounting research agenda further into the area of popular culture. The work examines the discourses that surrounded the drinking of alcohol in nineteenth century Britain and explores how an accounting failure disrupted the tension between the two established competing discourses, leading to a significant impact on UK drinking culture at the end of the nineteenth century.

The paper employs both primary and secondary sources. Secondary sources are used to develop the main themes of the discourses deployed by the temperance societies and the whisky companies. Primary sources derived from the contemporary press are employed, as necessary, in support.

The paper demonstrates that accounting, although it may not be central to a discourse or other social structure, can still have a profound impact upon cultural practices. The potential for research into culture and accounting should not therefore be dismissed if no immediate or concrete relationship between culture and accounting can be determined. Further support is provided for studies that seek to expand the accounting research agenda into new territories.

The study of popular culture is relatively novel in accounting research. This paper seeks to add to this research by exploring an area of cultural activity that has hitherto been neglected by researchers, i.e. by exploring how an accounting incident impacted upon the historical consumption of Scotch whisky in the UK.

There is a growing body of research into the utilisation of social networking sites (SNS) by alcohol marketers, but less research into how young people utilise SNS to create their own meanings of, and interactions with, alcohol. The purpose of this study was to explore young adults’ perceptions of the nexus between alcohol and SNS.

In total, 60 adults aged 18-21 years took part in an intensive data collection process over six months. All references to social media in the interviews, focus groups and written introspections were compiled and analysed.

Results showed social media use stimulates alcohol consumption and alcohol consumption stimulates social media use. Four main themes emerged: social engagement, identity, drinking culture and distancing. Participants reported being constantly exposed to, and often influenced by, images of their peers enjoying themselves while consuming alcohol, with little representation of negative outcomes.

The relationship between SNS, social norms and drinking behaviours is complex; there is a need for further research into the dynamics of this relationship to inform social marketing interventions.

While there is a body of research into commercial references to alcohol on SNS, there is less research into the ways young people utilise SNS to create their own meanings of, and interactions with, alcohol. The consumer research that has been conducted to date has focused on quantifying references to alcohol and drinking behaviours, observing profiles or surveying users. This study addresses a key gap in the literature that is needed to inform social marketing interventions to reduce excessive alcohol consumption: when, why and how do young people post about alcohol.