Pop Culture Influences on Underage Drinking

by Dover Police Charities

Understanding Pop Culture messages is an important step in preparing students to be community activists. Youth advocates should be conversant in the basics of Pop Culture influences and sensitized to the negative messages their peers and the community can get from popular music, movies, TV, video games, toys, and pop idols. Dover Youth to Youth has recently revamped its Pop Culture presentation and has a variety of resources to help youth learn about pop culture influences.

This workshop is designed to make the audience aware of and sensitive to the negative messages kids and the community are getting from popular music, movies, TV shows, video games, advertisements, toys, and various pop idols.

ET Drinking Beer

It is a highly visual presentation that includes many video clips and examples where audience members are challenged to identify “what message would a 5th grader get about alcohol if they were watching this?” Presentation time is generally 45-60 minutes.

This workshop is normally provided to parent or other adult groups to make them more aware of how pop culture is sending children positive pro-drinking (or pro-drug use) messages. In addition, this workshop is highly useful for youth advocates that are part of a substance abuse prevention program in the community.

Pop Culture Presentation Package

Youth to Youth students present this training to various groups and helps other groups give the presentation in their community. Organizations interested in giving this presentation can get copies of the lesson plan, an instruction packet, the core video, and all handouts. This includes a video of the full presentation being delivered to serve as an example of what the final lesson can look like. This package is available on our purchase product page.

Additional Information on Alcohol Marketing:

The Relationship Between Exposure to Alcohol Marketing and Underage Drinking Is Causal
James D. Sargent and Thomas F. Babor
Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, Supplement 2020 :s19, 113-124

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