“Disease” of the Nation, Family and Individual: Three Moral Discourses of Alcohol Problems in Finnish Women's Magazines from the 1960s to the 2000s

Abstract

Women's magazines can be seen as a genre that form feminized public spaces where everyday life contradictions of women's life are negotiated. The study examines the ways in which Finnish women's magazines have dealt with alcohol problems. The data covers six primary sampling years: 1968, 1976, 1984, 1992, 2000 and 2008. The data is analyzed by drawing on the concept of ‘moral regulation’. The analysis shows that a family-centered framing dominated the constructions of alcohol problem: fathers’ and husbands’ alcoholism appeared as a main object of regulation in all decades under study, while mothers’ and wives’ alcoholism was much less prevalent.

Keywords :

• alcohol problems
• women's magazines
• media research
• qualitative research
• gender
• family
• moral regulation
• moral entrepreneurs

THE AUTHORS

Jukka Törrönen, PhD in sociology, has a chair as professor on social alcohol and drug research at SoRAD. He has had a long-term interest in alcohol and drug research, in theoretical sociology and in qualitative methods. His recent and ongoing work has been focused on (a) disorderly public drinking, moral regulation and the new social and political control programs, on (b) the restaurant/pub, social control and young adults’ drinking cultures, on (c) women, health and substance use, as well as on d) changes in the cultural position of drinking.www.add-resources.org

Jenni Simonen, PhD in sociology, is a senior researcher in the Alcohol and Drugs unit of National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland. She is interested in alcohol research, gendered and generational aspects of drinking and qualitative methods. Her main research topics relate to feminine and masculine drinking cultures, young people's drinking and drinking cultures among different generations and age groups. www.add-resources.org

Christoffer Tigerstedt, PhD in social policy, is a senior researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Dept. of Alcohol, Drugs and Addiction. He has written about alcohol policy systems in the Nordic countries, drug policies, drinking cultures and habits, as well as alcohol consumption-related harms to other than the drinker him/herself. www.add-resources.org

GLOSSARY

• Moral regulation: By linking feared social harms to certain moralized subjects, objectives and practices, moral regulation involves the construction of distinctive expert knowledge of social harms. Moral regulation turns the social harms into visible, concrete and preventable objects of intervention, and attaches particular identities to its subjects.

• Moral regulator: the position of a ‘moral regulator’ may be assumed by various actors from all key arenas of society (public administration, the media, workplaces, homes, leisure activities, etc.). From this perspective women's magazines can be considered to be moral regulators that act on the conduct of their readership.