Globalisation:Democracy Institute:Alcohol

Democracy Institute On Alcohol

The Democracy Institute has various articles on the subject of alcohol and its issues, it looks at different claims stated by others and comes to its own conclusion.The democracy institue employs authors to write about different topics, but essentially this is based on the topic of alcohol. They fail to state who writes these articles and who funds the reports therefore,its an interest in why these topics are written about.

Alcohol Advertisement

The British Medical Association has called for a ban on advertising alcohol in a bid to reduce alcohol related issues, and the worrying consumption of alcoholic beverages consumed each week in today’s society. Market advertising is some what promoting drinking alcohol, but does not expose the problems alcohol has on people's body and mind.“(BMA) believes that alcohol – the nation’s favourite drug –should be subjected to the same advertising rules as tobacco” . In the United Kingdom there are three major issues which impact on people's health, thus being alcohol, tobacco and obesity. In this area one will focus specifically on how alcohol is represented in contemporary societies. The BMA believes that by banning advertising ‘Identifies effective ways of protecting young people from the influence of alcohol promotion and marketing’. . What is evident from this claim is it has undergone much scrutiny and may not be the right path to reducing alcohol consumption and related issues.

The public health community's attidude is based largely on the work of Ledermann who created the hierarchy effects model, which has been used in favour of their arguement that alcohol advertising should be banned. This has come under fire from the Democracy institute as they believe this model has various flaws. Ledermann stated there was a link between alcohol consumption and alcohol abuse and how people's decision making is effected by advertisment. Researchers Skog and Makela claim does not take into account all parts of society, " Ledermann’s claim was not validated by Scandinavian data... could not explain abstainers".Ledermann' s model shows what countries are similar to one another in alochol their alcohol consumptions, but what is evident is their are major differnces in the data. For example Italy and Ireland are similar, but the model does not take into account that there is more abusers and abstainers in Ireland, but the Irish consumes the same amount as Itailian citzens. Authors of the democrary institue Basham and Luik disputes the models legitamacy aswell. "The empirical evidence for this model is weak and even taken on their own terms studies of alcohol advertising consistently fail to demonstrate that the drinking behaviour of an individual is the causal result of an alcohol advertisement".What is apparent is the BMA has used this model to claim alcohol advertising should be banned, but a problem with this statement is there are flaws within their data, and therefore their claim is some what based on inadequate findings.

Case Studies

This area attempts to discover if in actual fact it has been scietifically proven that there is a link between advertising and alcohol. Based on the data and findings, the BMA has reported that there is a link between advertising increasing the alcohol consumption of viewers, the Democracy Institue has various issues with this statement. There has been a variety of studies carried out on this contested topic. Connelly in 1994 tried to link advertising having a effect on consumor consumption. What was found was that there was no link. Where as report produced by Inter Science claims that there is in actual fact a link between the both of these attributes. There aim was to examine the relationship between the differnet types of advertising and the affect it has on adolescents. What was found was "Several forms of alcohol advertising predict adolescent drinking; which sources dominate depends on the child’s prior experience with alcohol". It this article state that advertising will affect those who are exposed to alcohol at a young age:"middle school youth who had already begun drinking by grade 7, future drinking is more likely to be influenced by exposure to alcohol advertising".

Democracy Institutes Attidude=

Through out this BMA report the democracy institue has questioned their view on banning alcohol advertising, is there a reason behind disclaiming this report, or is it to educate citizens that the increase in alcohol consumption can not be soley blamed on advertising companies. Basham and Luik state that banning alcohol ads will not cure alcoholism, but will inadvertently make people want to drink more. They claim the model used by the British Medical Association has a number of faults and therefore, their claim for banning alochol advertising is unjust. "The empirical evidence for this model is weak and even taken on their own terms studies of alcohol advertising consistently fail to demonstrate that the drinking behaviour of an individual is the causal result of an alcohol advertisement". The faults of the study done by the BMA was Basham and Luik come to the understanding that the BMA did not gather enough statistical data and their findings were not fully conclusive. This artcile was published through the indepentant organisation; Spiked. This organisation does not state who funded this democracy institue report