| dc.description.abstract | This research project although driven by the need of establishing possible linkage
between alcohol advertising and alcoholic behaviour, selects a title that explores the
process, uses and functions of alcohol advertisements in the lives of the Kenyan youth
within their various categories rather than simply on a straightforward analysis of
"effects." This is a personal belief that the term "effects" is misleading in that it suggests
that alcohol advertisements does something to youthful population. The connotation is
that the advertisements are the actor while the youth are acted upon. The youth are thus
made to seem relatively inert; advertisements relatively active. Youth are sitting victims;
advertisements bite them. Such notions although may not be further from the truth, it is
important to emphasize that the youth are not passive entities being acted upon by alcohol
advertisements. To the contrary: the youth use such advertisements not the advertisement
use the youth. Indeed such a scope is important in order to ascertain how the Kenyan
youth within their various categories are approached by marketers through
communication. To achieve a better understanding of this study, the research draws an analogy between
alcohol adverts and popular eating joint/hotel/cafe. From the advertisements just like the
hotel the youth selects what they need. It is the belief that the alcohol advertisement's bill
of fare contain many dishes heavy in fantasy, and that there are large slices of knowledge
and certainly less variety in the menu than some of the patrons may prefer at anyone
time. Thus in order to understand the effects of alcohol advertisements, it is necessary to
understand a great deal about the lives of the Kenyan youth. There is the need to know
what is in their lives that make them reach out for a particular experience in the advertisements. Only then can we know how their lives interact with and are influenced
by the advertisements.
This research takes into account the rapid development of the media industry in Kenya.
With certainty it acknowledges that 'Advertising is everywhere'. We cannot escape
billboards, TV and radio, newspapers, posters, branded clothes and shops painted to
advertise products and services. While sometimes the amount of advertising may seem
overwhelming, we cannot ignore the fact that it points to a growing economy. Although,
there are many reasons why people advertise, the underlying reason is to influence
consumers purchasing decision. In this light, advertising is nothing but planned
communication aimed at bringing out certain practices among target groups by impacting
desired knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. In Kenya, advertising is categorised as commercial speech and has a constitutional
legitimacy under freedom of expression which also guarantees freedom to make public
(publicise) events. More importantly too, mass media institutions are protected under the
law and rely heavily on advertising as the most reliable means of revenue. Advertising
agencies have invested heavily on mass mediated forms such as billboards and other
forms of transit media. However advertising through the mass media especially the radio,
television and billboards has often faced critism as it cannot discriminate target groups
from the rest of the society reached by those channels. As much as advertising is both legal and essential, alcohol advertising in the Kenyan
mass media has been facing government scrutiny in light of a perceived "drinking
culture" in the country. Even though medical research hails moderate use of alcoholic
beverages as beneficial to health, prolonged use and overindulgence has serious side
effects in the long run or ultimately lead to death. Today's alcoholics were probably
yesterday's first timers or even moderates and today's first timers or moderates are
probably tomorrow's alcoholics. That's why images of drunken teenagers sometimes in
their school uniforms becoming a common feature in our mass media such as television
and newspapers are a disturbing trend among stakeholders. Whatever the reasons are for
engaging in alcohol consumption the consequences of alcohol abuse cannot be
overemphasized. Apart from the much obvious social-economic reasons alcohol abuse
has found itself victimized for a number of road accidents in the country as well as
leading cause of irresponsible sexual behaviour which is fatal in the era of HIV /AIDS. A
recently released Horizons research paper reported that alcohol has several effects that
increase people's vulnerability to HIV. In addition to blunting one's self-monitoring
behaviour, thus increasing the likelihood of having multiple partners and unprotected sex,
the paper noted that "evidence suggests a direct biomedical link between alcohol
consumption and HIV infection and disease". In that "Heavy and sustained alcohol use
depress the immune system and cause alcohol-induced malnutrition, which can cause
vulnerability to HIV infection," it said. "Emerging laboratory evidence suggests that
alcohol may morphologically alter cellular structure to increase both HIV infectivity and
vulnerability of cells." With such a possibility, protecting vulnerable groups like the youth from anything that
entices them into alcoholism is indeed a worthy cause. Recent statistics indicate that the
youth constitute a large percentage of Kenya's population and over 60% of Kenya's
workforce, whom if not checked their productivity can be wasted by alcohol abuse. Often
drug abuse is often associated with wastage of manpower, poverty and increased crime.
Kenya's government's recent proposal to ban alcohol advertising in the mass media has
mainly become an issue at the political circles. An academic reference to this matter has
been citations from previous researches done in the developed world. Although nothing is
wrong with such move the need for a Kenyan study on the matter is indeed begging
furthermore we are dealing with Kenyan adverts exposed to the Kenyan public.
Since this study approached the issue at hand from a perspective that visualizes alcohol
advertisements as appeals that call for action from the consumer, then it explored how the
adverts interacted with categories of youth to either produce or not produce certain ends.
Through knowledge, attitude, belief and practice (KABP) survey, the research established
what exactly appealed to what group and assessed the expectations of the youth in
accordance to the appeals. The survey method research design was employed for the study where 200 randomly
selected subjects drawn from Nairobi were subjected to questionnaires based study. This
provided me with primary data for this study. The outcome of this study established
surprising results. First it was clear that alcohol advertisements played crucial informative
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roles through awareness creation especially on existence of several alcoholic beverages.
Secondly these advertisements had a socialization function with approximately 70% of
the youth acknowledging that they shared or discussed about the advertisements they
observed, mainly among friends. As the research also found out, friends and peers formed an integral part among the lives
of the youth and were main sources of. information on many issues. The findings also
indicated that the youth had strong value systems they treasured in life or society and
they even named some of the values they wanted to be associated with them. The danger
posed by alcohol advertisements is that some of them associated some of these values
with alcohol. While some of the figures showed that at least 57% of the youth demanded
respect from their friends, ironically this value was perceived to have an association with
some alcoholic brands.
There were other advertisements that directly told the youth on time or occasions best
suited for alcohol consumption such as 'baada ya kazi' (after work). However, some of
the youth by inferencing on the advertisement were able to state some of the time or
occasion they thought were best suited for alcohol consumption. For example by
observing 'many people dancing in an advertisement' probably indicated occasions such
as parties or celebrations. However, a large proportion of the respondents attributed that
the information to consume alcohol was actually personal views. As found out too,
alcohol advertisements created expectations among its audience. While some of the expectations did not match relayed experience for some of the respondents, for some, the
expectations were skewed along relayed experiences in the media.
On the issues of knowledge, attitude and practice the research results showed that most
youths were able to distinguish falsehoods in the advertisements and expressed no chance
in exhibiting observed behaviour in the advertisements. However for some, there were
serious indications that some of the ideas portrayed by some of the advertisements were
quite overwhelming. | en |
