Music Video Viewing as a Marker of Driving After the Consumption of Alcohol

Abstract

This study has two main objectives. First, it is examined whether the frequent exposure to music video viewing is associated with driving after the consumption of alcohol. Second, it is examined which theoretical framework, a combination of Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior or the Problem Behavior Theory, is suited best to explain this relationship. Participants were 426 Flemish adolescents who took part in a two-wave panel survey (2006–2008) about media use, risk-taking attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. In line with Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, the results showed that adolescents’ music video viewing is a significant marker of later risky driving behavior and that this relationship is mediated through their attitudes and intentions. No support was found for the hypothesis that music video viewing is part of a cluster of problem behaviors (Problem Behavior Theory). Thus, the results of this study seem to indicate that a combination of Cultivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior provides a more useful framework for explaining the relationship between music video viewing and driving after the consumption of alcohol. The implications for prevention and the study's limitations are discussed.

Keywords :

• music videos
• alcohol
• driving
• media effects
• Cultivation Theory
• Problem Behavior Theory
• Theory of Planned Behavior

THE AUTHORS

Kathleen Beullens is a postdoctoral fellow funded by the Research Fund Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen). She has a M.A. in communication sciences and a Ph.D. in social sciences (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium). Her main research interests include the effects of mass media use on health among adolescents and young adults.

Keith Roe is full professor and Head of the School of Mass Communication Research at the Catholic University of Leuven, Flanders, Belgium. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1983 and has also spent periods as a Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam, The University of Chapel Hill at North Carolina, the Anneneberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University. His research interests include the sociology of the media, media effects, and the digital divide.

Jan Van den Bulck (Ph.D. in social sciences, D.Sc. in epidemiology) is a professor at the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He is interested in media effects on behavior, health, and perception. He is mainly interested in nonintentional media effects, including the effects of entertainment and fiction.

GLOSSARY

• Cultivation Theory: George Gerbner's Cultivation Theory has to do with the idea that there are important discrepancies between the world as it is depicted on television (“television world”) and the “real world.” Cultivation theorists have argued that since heavy television viewers are constantly exposed to similar images on television, they cultivate (in the long term) perceptions and attitudes similar to the television world (more than light viewers do; Gerbner et al., 1986; Gerbner and Gross, 1976).

• Problem Behavior Theory: Problem Behavior Theory (PBT; Jessor & Jessor, 1977) argues that several forms of problem behavior co-occur and form a cluster of problem behaviors. More specifically behavior is a function of three systems of psychosocial influence: the personality system, the perceived environment system, and the behavior system. Each of these systems contains factors which either act prohibitively or foster problem behavior. Together these three systems determine adolescents’ risk-taking inclinations.

• Theory of Planned Behavior: Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is an elaboration of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen, 1991) and deals with the relationship between attitudes and behavior. According to TPB, behavior is directly predicted by behavioral intentions which are in turn predicted by someone's attitudes toward that particular behavior, the subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control.

Notes

1 The reader is referred to Hills's criteria for causation which were developed in order to help assist researchers and clinicians determine if risk factors were causes of a particular disease or outcomes or merely associated (Hill, 1965).Editor's note.