Recorded presentation

Nicole Blair, Office on Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway NE, Mail Stop K-50, Atlanta, GA 30341, 770/488-5709, nbg5@cdc.gov, So Kuen Yue, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health, 1518 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, Ranbir Singh, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, and Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH, Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30322.

Over the last ten years, reality-based television has emerged as a new form of entertainment that allows viewers to watch how people behave in an unscripted situation. One popular example is The Osbournes, which airs on MTV, and provides the viewer an intimate look inside the everyday life of a former rock star and his family. While advertisements, television programs, and films have been heavily researched for their content of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug references and visuals, reality-based programs remain uncharted territory. This study looks at the nature of substance use messages imbedded in “The Osbournes: The First Season,” including the frequency of messages, assessing if messages are substance use promoting or inhibiting, who the primary sources are for these messages, and how these messages are conveyed. Substance use messages ranged from 2-16 per episode, with an average of 9.1 messages per episode. While the majority of health messages regarding drug use (71%) were drug use inhibiting, the majority of alcohol (71%) and tobacco (78%) messages were substance use promoting. In addition, the majority of substance use inhibiting messages (33/35) were conveyed verbally, whereas the majority of substance use promoting messages (36/56) were conveyed visually, thus providing increased role modeling of unhealthy behavior. These findings support the need for additional research into the arena of reality-based television programming, and the influences such messages have on their largest audience, youth.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to describe the genre of reality television programming.
• Participants will be able to describe the range of health promoting and inhibiting messages included in reality programming.
• Participants will be able to identify methodological strategies for content analysis of television programs.

Keywords: Substance Abuse, Media

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation