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The influence of social media on young people's alcohol consumption behaviors: A comparison of factors between Australia and India - PhD Project

  • Research program: New technologies and online interventions
  • Project status: Completed
  • Start date: May 2015
  • Expected end date: May 2019
  • Completion date: July 2019
  • Funded by: Curtin HS International Research Scholarship
  • Lead organisation:
Project Description

Advertisers have been quick to realize the potential of the internet as a means of engaging with existing customers and recruiting new consumers. Most of the research done into alcohol marketing and young people on social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter has been conducted in the USA, UK and New Zealand. There is a small, but growing body of work examining how young people engage with alcohol and (re)produce alcohol marketing messages via SNS in Australia. Most of this work examines alcohol-related content posted on Facebook. Interestingly, there is no evidence of research that has examined how alcohol marketing targets young people on YouTube and Twitter, despite the popularity of these SNS. Further, it appears that no research examining alcohol advertising via SNS has been conducted in India, an emerging alcohol market.

This study involves surveying youth exposure to alcohol marketing via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter websites, and investigating the relationship between social media use and alcohol consumption among Australian and Indian youth. The study will provide an opportunity to investigate how young people engage with such marketing practices and potential impacts of those practices on their alcohol consumption behaviours. The results of the study will be used to provide recommendations for policies on the regulation of alcohol marketing using social media in Australia and India.

PhD Student

Dr Himanshu Gupta
Research Fellow
Tel: 61 (0)8 8946 8597
himanshu.gupta@menzies.edu.au
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PhD Supervisors

Professor Simone Pettigrew
Professor
Tel: 61 (0)2 8052 4624
SPettigrew@georgeinstitute.org.au
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Dr Robert Tait
Senior Research Fellow
Tel:
robert.tait@curtin.edu.au
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Dr Tina Lam
Research Fellow
Tel: 61 (0)3 9904 4446
tina.lam@monash.edu
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Sustainable Development Goals and Targets

This project aligns with the following Sustainable Development Goals and Targets:

Related Publications

Gupta, H., Lam, T., Pettigrew, S. and Tait, R., J. (2018). Alcohol marketing on YouTube: Exploratory analysis of content adaptation to enhance user engagement in different national contexts. BMC Public Health, 18, (141). doi:10.1186/s12889-018-5035-3 [RJ1397] View web page

Gupta, H., Lam, T., Pettigrew, S. and Tait, R., J. (2018). The association between exposure to social media alcohol marketing and youth alcohol use in India and Australia. BMC Public Health, 18, (726). doi:10.1186/s12889-018-5645-9 [RJ1393] View web page

Gupta, H., Lam, T., Pettigrew, S. and Tait, R., J. (2017). A cross-national comparison of the Twitter feeds of popular alcohol brands in India and Australia. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy. pp. 1-9. doi:10.1080/09687637.2017.1411886 [RJ1391] View web page

Gupta, H., Pettigrew, S., Lam, T. and Tait, R., J. (2017). How alcohol marketing engages users with alcohol brand content on Facebook: An Indian and Australian perspective. Critical Public Health. doi:10.1080/09581596.2017.1318203 [RJ1244] View web page

Gupta, H., Pettigrew, S., Lam, T. and Tait, R., J. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of exposure to internet-based alcohol-related content on young people’s alcohol use behaviours. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 51, (6), pp. 763-771. doi:10.1093/alcalc/agw050 [RJ1203] View web page