Portrayal of Alcohol Brands Popular Among Underage Youth on YouTube: A Content Analysis

Abstract

Objective. We characterized leading YouTube videos featuring alcohol brand references and examined video characteristics associated with each brand and video category.Method. We systematically captured the 137 most relevant and popular videos on YouTube portraying alcohol brands that are popular among underage youth. We employed an iterative process to codebook development. We coded variables within domains of video type, character socio-demographics, production quality, and negative and positive associations with alcohol use.All variables were double coded, and Cohen's κ>0.80 for all variables except age, which was eliminated.Results. There were 96,860,936 combined views for all videos. The most common video type was -traditional advertisements,‖ which comprised 40% of videos. Of the videos, 20% were -guides‖ and 10% focused on chugging a bottle of hard liquor. While 95% of videos featured males, 40% featured females. Alcohol intoxication was present in 19% of videos. Aggression, addiction, and injuries were uncommonly identified (2%, 3%, and 4%, respectively), but 47% of videos contained humor. Traditional advertisements represented the majority of videos related to Bud Light (83%) but only 18% of Grey Goose and 8% of Hennessy videos. Intoxication was most present in chugging demonstrations (77%), while addiction was only portrayed in music videos (22%). Videos containing humor ranged from 11% for music-related videos to 77% for traditional advertisements.

What Can We Learn From Alcohol-Related YouTube Videos?

“…The authors highlighted that even with some existing social responsibility codes-provided by alcohol industry self-regulated councils-suggesting that alcohol advertising should not depict excessive or irresponsible drinking, the alcohol industry does not always comply with these orientations. In addition, it worth noting that most of the retrieved videos were not uploaded by the companies themselves (Primack et al, 2017), corroborating other recent study results suggesting that video promotions occur even without prior alcohol industry knowledge (Lobstein et al, 2017).…”

Analysis of YouTube content on substance use disorder treatment and recovery

“…Each video in our study had been viewed a median of more than 60,000 times. Although more than the YouTube videos on cannabis vaping, this number is less than the viewership of youth-oriented alcohol brands (Lim et al, 2021;Primack et al, 2017). The number of views indicates the relative popularity of or interest in the topic; however, the view count depends on the time since the video upload.…”

What Can We Learn From Alcohol-Related YouTube Videos?

“…Digital media, including YouTube, is likely to be having an impact on drinking behavior (Lobstein et al, 2017) and drinking normalization (Griffi ths & Casswell, 2010) because it has become part of the contemporary formal and informal educational process (Burke & Snyder, 2008;Jaffar, 2012;Saurabh & Sairam, 2013). It is therefore crucial to take into account the effect that alcohol-related videos on YouTube and other digital channels may have on perceptions about alcohol because most use humor to depict positive associations, with only a few presenting the negative consequences (Primack et al, 2017). Most of these videos target young people, who misperceive drinking norms (Perkins et al, 2005), and the videos portraying binge drinking or intoxication may reinforce the misperception that these alcohol use patterns are normal behavior for young people.…”