The Effectiveness of Different Approaches to Media Literacy in Modifying Adolescents' Responses to Alcohol

Abstract

Fearing the negative effect that alcohol advertising might have on adolescents' receptiveness to the consumption of alcohol, health educators have used media literacy as an effective strategy to mitigate the effect of these messages in the media. The present study applied parental mediation to the design and evaluations of a media literacy curriculum that targets alcohol decision-making processes illustrated in the message interpretation process model. The authors conducted a pretest–posttest quasi-experiment of 171 adolescents to examine the effect of a negative evaluative approach and a balanced evaluative approach (a combination of negative and positive evaluative strategies) to media literacy on modifying adolescents' responses to alcohol messages. Results showed that different media literacy approaches had varying degrees of effectiveness on adolescent boys and girls. After receiving a negative media literacy lesson, adolescent boys regarded television characters as less realistic and believed that drinking alcohol had negative consequences. In contrast, adolescent girls benefited more from a balanced evaluative approach as their media skepticism attitude was enhanced. Results suggest that health educators should choose tailored pedagogical approaches that are based on gender to improve decision making regarding alcohol consumption.

Acknowledgments

This investigation was supported by funds provided for medical and biological research by the State of Washington Initiative Measure No. 171.

Notes

Note. Only significant effects were denoted with superscripts.

^i_realInteraction effect for realism: Boys in the negative evaluative condition versus boys in the control group, t(84) = − 2.26, p < .05; boys in the negative evaluative condition versus boys in the balanced group, t(84) = − 1.79, p = .08.

^c_expMain condition effect for negative expectancies: negative evaluative condition versus balanced evaluative condition, t(168) = 2.30, p < .05; control condition versus balanced evaluative condition, t(168) = − 2.16, p < .05.

^g_expMain gender effect for negative expectancies: girls versus boys, t(170) = − 1.94, p < .05.

^i_expInteraction effect for negative expectancies: boys in the balanced evaluative condition versus boys in the control condition, t(84) = − 2.90, p < .05.

^i_mskepInteraction effect for media skepticism: girls in the balanced evaluative condition versus girls in the control condition, t(81) = 2.06, p < .05.