Discourses of risk in public health advertising about underage alcohol consumption

Abstract

Underage alcohol consumption has been linked to major risks, the practice of which has been linked to parental responsibility and management and a major topic in public health advertising campaigns. The aim of the current study is to investigate how risk discourses are constructed in public health advertisements against underage alcohol consumption. To achieve this aim, I apply the framework of social semiotics to analyse a series of public health campaigns in Australia to understand the construction of risk across multiple meaning-making resources. The analyses of the advertisements provide insights into the choices of semiotic resources to construct multiple perspectives of risk discourses to communicate alcohol-related risks and persuade parents to not supply alcohol to their children. The study opens up new agendas of research, by complementing textual analyses with audience interpretations, to provide deeper insights into how alcohol-related public health advertising is perceived, as well as improve its effectiveness and impact in the real world.

Keywords

• risk
• risk discourses
• health promotion
• public health advertising
• underage alcohol consumption