Helen Moewaka Barnes

Youth drinking cultures, social networking and alcohol marketing: implications for public health

Alcohol consumption and heavy drinking in young adults have been key concerns for public health. Alcohol marketing is an important factor in contributing to negative outcomes. The rapid growth in the use of new social networking technologies raises new issues regarding alcohol marketing, as well as potential impacts on alcohol cultures more generally. Young people, for example, routinely tell and re-tell drinking stories online, share images depicting drinking, and are exposed to often intensive and novel forms of alcohol marketing. In this paper, we critically review the research literature on (a) social networking technologies and alcohol marketing and (b) online alcohol content on social networks, and then consider implications for public health knowledge and research. We conclude that social networking systems are positive and pleasurable for young people, but are likely to contribute to pro-alcohol environments and encourage drinking. However, currently research is preliminary and descriptive, and we need innovative methods and detailed in-depth studies to gain greater understanding of young people’s mediated drinking cultures and commercial alcohol promotion.

Youth identity formation and contemporary alcohol marketing

This paper considers linkages between contemporary marketing theory and practice, and emerging conceptualizations of identity, to discuss implications for public health concerns over alcohol use among young people. Particular attention is paid to the theorizing of consumption as a component of youth identities and the ways in which developments of marketing praxis orients to such schemata. The authors’ analyses of exemplars of marketing materials in use in Aotearoa New Zealand, drawn from their research archive, emphasize the sophistication and power of such forms of marketing. They argue that public health policy and practice must respond to the interweaving of marketing and the self-making practices of young people to counter this complex threat to the health and well-being of young people.

Kids in the city study: research design and methodology

BackgroundPhysical activity is essential for optimal physical and psychological health but substantial declines in childrens activity levels have occurred in New Zealand and internationally. Childrens independent mobility (i.e., outdoor play and traveling to destinations unsupervised), an integral component of physical activity in childhood, has also declined radically in recent decades. Safety-conscious parenting practices, car reliance and auto-centric urban design have converged to produce children living increasingly sedentary lives. This research investigates how urban neighborhood environments can support or enable or restrict childrens independent mobility, thereby influencing physical activity accumulation and participation in daily life.Methods/DesignThe study is located in six Auckland, New Zealand neighborhoods, diverse in terms of urban design attributes, particularly residential density. Participants comprise 160 children aged 9-11 years and their parents/caregivers. Objective measures (global positioning systems, accelerometers, geographical information systems, observational audits) assessed childrens independent mobility and physical activity, neighborhood infrastructure, and streetscape attributes. Parent and child neighborhood perceptions and experiences were assessed using qualitative research methods.DiscussionThis study is one of the first internationally to examine the association of specific urban design attributes with child independent mobility. Using robust, appropriate, and best practice objective measures, this study provides robust epidemiological information regarding the relationships between the built environment and health outcomes for this population.

Creating intoxigenic environments: marketing alcohol to young people in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Alcohol consumption among young people in New Zealand is on the rise. Given the broad array of acute and chronic harms that arise from this trend, it is a major cause for alarm and it is imperative that we improve our knowledge of key drivers of youth drinking. Changes wrought by the neoliberal political climate of deregulation that characterised the last two decades in many countries including Aotearoa (Aotearoa is a Maori name for New Zealand) New Zealand have transformed the availability of alcohol to young people. Commercial development of youth alcohol markets has seen the emergence of new environments, cultures and practices around drinking and intoxication but the ways in which these changes are interpreted and taken up are not well understood. This paper reports findings from a qualitative research project investigating the meaning-making practices of young people in New Zealand in response to alcohol marketing. Research data included group interviews with a range of Maori and Pakeha young people at three time periods. Thematic analyses of the youth data on usages of marketing materials indicate naturalisation of tropes of alcohol intoxication. We show how marketing is used and enjoyed in youth discourses creating and maintaining what we refer to as intoxigenic social environments. The implications are considered in light of the growing exposure of young people to alcohol marketing in a discussion of strategies to manage and mitigate its impacts on behaviour and consumption.

Consuming identities: alcohol marketing and the commodification of youth experience

Marketing has successfully used the postmodern turn in conceptualisations of the human subject and incorporated contemporary theorising of identities and self into its understanding of the key drivers of consumption. Such developments clearly converge in alcohol marketing practices that target young people, where commercialised youth identities available for consumption and engagement are a significant element. This article reports data from young people that reflect the uptake of such identities and considers the challenges that these developments represent for public health and the well-being of young people.

Alcohol and social media: drinking and drunkenness while online

Our New Zealand-based research provides new insights, drawn from focus group and interview data gathered from 18- to 25-year-olds, about how alcohol use and technology converge in drinking and drunkenness while online. Alcohol consumption is a key source of harm and damage to population health, particularly for young people whose engagement with web-based communications may be exacerbating problems. Participants’ talk around alcohol and SNS use is complex, with expressions of caution and regret, juxtaposed with accounts of fun, excitement and pleasure. Sharing, narration and elaboration of experiences of alcohol use online reinforce the social nature of risky drinking practices. The interface of social media and alcohol use is attracting novel forms of alcohol marketing that penetrates virtual and offline spaces, undermining conventional public health policies, approaches and tools for reducing population-level alcohol consumption.

Maori family culture: A context of youth development in Counties/Manukau

Abstract This paper reports on a study designed to bring the voices of young people directly into the social science literature regarding environmental influences on well‐being. We analyse accounts from young Maori about their families and the roles families play in order to focus on strengths and positive resources for the promotion of youth wellbeing. Interview data were gathered from 12 females and 15 males, aged between 12 and 25 years, resident in the Counties/Manukau region. Participants who were managing satisfactorily in their lives were purposively selected for diversity of background and circumstances. Our “life story” approach sought narrative accounts of both everyday experiences and the highs and lows of life; data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using discursive methods. Clusters of themes relating to family environments including relationships with parents, siblings and extended kin groups emerged. Participants provided detailed and nuanced accounts of family cultures; reporting on conflict, caring, gender issues, sensitivity, discipline, levels of guidance and forms of support.

Precarious Popularity: Facebook Drinking Photos, the Attention Economy, and the Regime of the Branded Self

Young people are often accused of being foolhardy for posting photos on Facebook that depict drinking and intoxication. However, in this article, we argue young people’s predilection for posting Facebook drinking photos must be understood in relation to Facebook’s specific architecture and affordances, and is symptomatic of new forms of online sociality and “required” aspects of identity work which are tied to imperatives for self-promotion in the current conjuncture. Focusing on young people’s own accounts of Facebook drinking displays derived from 24 focus groups in Aotearoa New Zealand, we develop an interpretative thematic analysis which suggests drinking photos facilitate valued forms of “amplified,” “authentic” sociality, visibility, and popularity. Our analysis highlights young people as negotiating forms of social connection and precarious popularity online in an active effort to navigate the risks and opportunities associated with drinking as a site of pleasure, leisure, and self-display. However, their experiences remain differentiated and entail the uneven distribution of risks and opportunities due to elided structural power relations. Moreover, while individuating imperatives for self-promotion are in one sense unavoidable, they are also contested through forms of evasion, resistance, and broader struggles for value linked to articulations of alternate senses of selfhood.

A pilot study of a computer-assisted cell-phone interview (CACI) methodology to survey respondents in households without telephones about alcohol use

An intrinsic drawback with the use of a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey methodology is that people who live in households without a connected landline telephone are excluded from the survey sample. This paper presents a pilot of the feasibility of a computer-assisted cell-phone interview (CACI) methodology designed to survey people living in households without a telephone about alcohol use and be compatible with a larger telephone based alcohol sample. The CACI method was found to be an efficient and cost competitive method to reach non-telephone households. Telephone ownership was found to make a difference to the typical occasion amount of alcohol consumed, with respondents from households without telephones drinking significantly more than those with telephones even when consumption levels were controlled for socio-economic status. Although high levels of telephone ownership in the general population mean these differences may not have any impact on population alcohol measures they may be important in sub-populations where telephone ownership is lower.

Towards promoting youth mental health in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Holistic "houses" of health

A study of the literature on mental health promotion suggests that to a far greater extent than ‘physical’ health concerns, mental health seems to be dominated by the illness focus of established clinical perspectives and practices. In Aotearoa/New Zealand this leaves little in the way of conceptual space or fiscal resources for the development of new preventative possibilities of population-oriented measures focused on enhancing social and physical environments. Outflanking this unfortunate impasse, indigenous Maori and Samoan (Pacific) conceptual frameworks for health offer holistic theoretical foundations upon which we can work for health through positive development. This paper examines these frameworks and the youth development paradigm to draw out parameters of what might count as healthy youth development in this country.