ABSTRACT
While much research on the roles of mediated communication in relation to alcohol consumption, drinking practices, and alcohol-related issues has traditionally focused on alcohol advertising and related types of alcohol promotion, recent decades have witnessed a growing recognition that research attention needs to be given to the wider media and symbolic environment, through which norms and values associated with the use and abuse of alcohol are communicated. We start by reviewing the growing body of research which has examined the extent, distribution across media and genres, and the substance of media messages about alcohol and drinking in advertising and entertainment media content. We then review the research evidence on how young people's learning about alcohol, beliefs about alcohol, and alcohol consumption practices are informed or infiuenced by alcohol advertising/promotion and by the types of media representations of alcohol identified in the first part of our review. Key approaches and frameworks for analyzing the role and influence of media representations of alcohol on young people's alcohol-related beliefs and practices are examined before considering the role of communication research evidence in relation to (political) questions about the regulation/restriction of alcohol promotion and images in the media. The review demonstrates that significant progress has been made in recent decades toward mapping the contours of the mediated message environment regarding alcohol, in the new media environment.
