Discourses of risk in public health advertising about underage alcohol consumption

1 Introduction

Underage alcohol consumption has been linked to major adverse outcomes [1], and thus, is advised against by the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia [2]. Nonetheless, parents may choose to supply alcohol to their children on occasions [3], the practice of which has been advised against in public health campaigns with varying degrees of effectiveness [4].

Considering how risk is central to discussions of underage alcohol consumption [1] and public health advertising [5,6], the current study aims to investigate how risk discourses are constructed in public health advertisements against underage alcohol supply and consumption. To achieve this aim, I conducted a case study on a series of public health campaigns in Australia, using the framework of social semiotics which analyses meaning-making processes across multiple semiotic resources in the advertisements [7,8,9]. The analyses of the videotexts provide insights into the choices of semiotic resources to construct multiple perspectives of risk discourses, to convey the intended messages and achieve communicative objectives, i.e. to communicate alcohol-related risks and persuade parents to not supply alcohol to their children.

The study begins with discussions of underage alcohol consumption and parental responsibilities, followed by a literature review of current theories of risk. Risk theories, particularly the sociocultural perspectives, wherein risks are understood through subjective experiences rather than objective phenomena [10], form the theoretical basis of this study. This is followed by a brief introduction to social semiotics based on Systemic Functional Theory [7,8,11], which serves as the methodological framework for the analyses of public health advertising against underage alcohol supply. Findings of the study are presented and discussed, followed by discussions of limitations and future agenda for research.

2 Underage alcohol consumption and parenting

Research has pointed out that alcohol consumption amongst young people has been declining in Australia, and the average age at which young people first tried alcohol has risen in the past two decades [12]. A review study by Vashishtha et al. [13] found that there was robust evidence to attribute this shift in young people’s behaviours to changes in parents’ behaviours, particularly increased alcohol supply control and monitoring (e.g. refs [14,15]).

Parental supply of alcohol is often considered morally wrong and an act of “bad parenting,” as evident in past studies on this subject [16]. Nonetheless, parents may commonly permit their children to use alcohol in particular settings in an attempt to control consumption and teach them to drink responsibly, with the assumption that drinking under parents’ supervision reduces potential harms associated with unsupervised drinking [3,16], even though there is no evidence of reduced adverse drinking outcomes as a result of parental permission [17]. Parents may also let their children drink due to social pressure from other adults who are present at the social situations [3], or pressure imposed by the knowledge or assumption that other parents provide alcohol to their children [18].

Of note, how “underage drinking” and “parental supply of alcohol” are defined and understood may vary, as many parents did not consider letting their children have “a sip” or drink in a controlled environment to be included in these categories [16,18]. As a result, these parents likely saw themselves as different from problematic “Other” parents who allow their children to drink excessively, and therefore, not part of the targeted audiences of public health campaigns about parental alcohol supply [16]. As such, further research on the construction of public health messaging regarding underage alcohol consumption is needed to further advance their effectiveness and impact.

3 Understanding risk and risk discourses in advertising

As alcohol consumption, particularly by adolescents, is often linked to major potential adverse outcomes and strategies to avoid or manage such outcomes [1,19], the current study uses the theoretical lens of risk to look at public health campaigns addressing this issue in the society. The theoretical framework of risk provides a systematic approach for understanding the ways dangers and potential threats are identified and managed through the knowledge, meanings, and strategies constructed around risk in the media and society [20]. In this section, I discuss the main theories of risk and risk discourses in the current literature, followed by discussion of risk discourses relating to public health advertising and parental risk management.

4 A brief introduction to multimodal discourse analysis

Considering the multimodal nature of risk communication (i.e. the combination of multiple resources such as language, visuals, and audios to make meanings) in media texts, there has also been a move towards multimodal discourse analysis, specifically using the methodological framework of social semiotics. Examples of such work in health risk communication include the multimodal discourse analyses of road safety advertising [51], suicide prevention websites [52], and COVID-19 information adverts and comics [53,54], to name a few.

Built upon the core principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics first introduced by Halliday [55], social semiotics looks at the social functions of meanings, which are constructed by the combination and configuration of “semiotic resources,” or resources with meaning potentials, and shaped by the situational and sociocultural contexts [9,56]. Social semiotics, unlike traditional semiotics and structural linguistics, highlights the meaning makers’ agency and intentionality in selecting the most apt resources to convey desired meanings and guide the audience towards the preferred interpretations [56,57].

Social semiotic theories posit that semiotic resources used to convey meanings in any given context perform three basic functions: (1) an “ideational” function to reflect real-world happenings and their logical relationships; (2) an “interpersonal” function to convey social relations of those taking part in the interaction; and (3) a “textual” function which organises information flow and cohesion [11,55]. Each semiotic resource has unique affordances and constraints in realising these functions: for example, language gives interpersonal meanings by use of modal verbs (“can,” ”could,” etc.), adjectives, or adverbs to denote engagement and certainty with the information being conveyed and with the audience [11]; whereas visual cues do this by means of viewing angles, gaze directions, or camera movement to denote relationships between characters, and between characters and viewers [7]. The semiotic resources are not only analysed individually, but also in relation to one another to understand how they form cohesive meanings in the texts [8].

By looking at meaning-making as a social and functional process, social semiotics fits the aim of the current study, as it allows for the understanding of risk discourses in public health advertising in and through the choices of semiotic resources to produce desirable effects, i.e. influence people’s understanding and reactions to imminent health risks in specific contexts.

5 Case Study: “Alcohol. Think Again” Campaigns addressing parental alcohol supply

“Alcohol. Think Again” is a government-funded series of public health campaigns in Western Australia, which aims to raise awareness and provide education about low-risk alcohol consumption and reduce the risks of alcohol-related harms in the Western Australian community (Alcohol. Think Again, n.d.). Under the scope of this study, I specifically looked at three specific campaigns, which target parents of young people aged 12–17 to raise their awareness on alcohol harms, reduce inflated perceptions of the prevalence of underage drinking, and increase understanding about personal and community responsibility to prevent alcohol supply to young people (Alcohol. Think Again, n.d.). The advertising campaigns were chosen as they are underpinned by health risk discourses relating to underage alcohol consumption in Australia.

Elsewhere, the effectiveness of these campaigns has been evaluated [4,58]; the focus of this study is to explore the discursive construction of risk through the choices of semiotic resources and how these may inform and address the social issue of underage drinking and parental supply control in the context of Australia. Within the limited scope of this study, I only focused on video advertisements (instead of other formats such as print, radio, or social media), which are made public on television, official webpages, and social media (Table 2).

6 Findings of the analyses

6.1 Overall key message of the campaigns

The three campaigns under analysis have the same key message, “No one should give alcohol to under 18s,” conveying the main objective of the campaigns.

The message is written in the active structure, i.e. the actor carrying out the action in the Subject position, means that the action “give alcohol” is considered an agentive, intentional choice of a person (cf. ref. [11]) (Table 3). The choice of an active structure is a semiotic choice setting it apart from potential passive forms, in which the Actor would have been an obliqued, hidden agent that is devoid of accountability for their action. This deliberate action of “giving alcohol” is advised against using the modal “should” (cf. ref. [11]). In the position of Theme, which is the starting point and main prominent topic of the clause [11], the phrase “no one” further emphasises the inclusiveness of the key message, where no individual can be considered an exception to this health advice.

Table 3

Linguistic analysis of the key message

Several video advertisements released within the three campaigns involved scenes in home settings where a teenager asked their father to have a drink. These portrayals are consistent with the literature about young people taking risks and pushing the boundaries when it comes to alcohol consumption [43,44]. The scenes are shown from a side angle, with the characters being in medium to close shot but not directly gazing straight at the camera (Figure 1), which positions viewers as observers with close-up views into their family lives, but not as a direct participant or a distanced bystander (cf. ref. [7]). The positioning allows the target audience to be engaged in the scene, but still detached enough to make impartial judgements of what is to unfold, i.e. whether the parent allows the child to drink. The semiotic choice of familiar home settings (e.g. at the dinner table in Campaign 3, and in the lounge room watching football in Campaign 1) corresponds with existing literature that parents may allow drinking on spontaneous, single social occasions, despite forbidding alcohol at all other times [3]. The exception to these features is the second campaign, which is discussed in a later section.

Figure 1

Scenes with teenaged characters asking parental permission to drink in home settings.

6.2 Campaign 1: technico-scientific knowledge

The first campaign features multiple TV advertisements which highlight alcohol-related risks, including accidents, psychological harms, brain damage, etc., which are reported by various people in professional roles. The slogan of the first campaign, “I see the harms alcohol does to young people,” depicts the Mental process of “seeing” the alcohol-related harms. In turn, these harms are characterised as an observable action through the use of the Material process “does,” which highlights the realness of the harmful consequences that alcohol brings (cf. ref. [11]) (Table 4).

Table 4

Linguistic analysis of Campaign 1 slogan

Meanwhile, the name of the campaign omitted the Phenomenon that is being “seen” (cf. ref. [11]), which perhaps invites viewers to turn their attention towards other semiotic resources in the advertisements to fill in the missing components. The statements starting with “I see…” are also repeated multiple times in various advertisements within this campaign, accompanied by visual scenes of the various potential risks of underage alcohol consumption (Figure 2). These visual scenes, thus, have been transformed into a linguistic resource, and become “semiotic metaphors” which stand for “the harms alcohol does to young people” (cf. ref. [8]). These risks are constructed to be visually dark and grim, using low lights and a yellow- or blue-tinged lens that may influence the emotional response to the scenes (cf. refs [59,60]). The imagery is accompanied by voices in deep tones and harsh timbres listing the harms they have seen. These modes of presentation altogether enhance the severity of the alcohol-related risks being conveyed (cf. ref. [61]).

Figure 2

Visual depictions of alcohol-related harms.

The first-person pronoun “I” is semiotically cohesive with the characters, who are visually depicted in various occupations that are in the positions to “see” such alcohol-related harms in their lines of work, i.e. taxi driver, paramedic, doctor, and psychologist (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Visual depictions of professionals talking about alcohol-related harms.

As government-funded health campaigns generally incorporate experts’ advice to warn the public about imminent threats from the technico-scientific perspective [48], these professionals take on the role of the “experts” to provide details of alcohol harms they observed on the job, which serve as risk warnings. Most of these characters being medical professionals (paramedic, health specialist, and psychologist) further reinforce their position of authority to report on health risks and provide warnings – except for the taxi driver. Notably, an independent evaluation of the campaign [58] reported that the audiences found the taxi driver to be the least well-rated on measures of credibility and impact compared to the medical professionals, which aligns with the technico-scientific discourse that highly regards advice from scientific experts in their relevant fields [20,29].

6.3 Campaign 2: parental responsibilities

The second campaign consisted of various advertisements and posters which feature young people telling the audience to say “no” to providing alcohol to under 18s. The campaign features direct, close-up shots of young people who look straight at the camera, suggesting that they are in direct engagement with the audience who are positioned as if in conversation with them (cf. ref. [7]) (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Young people sending a direct message to viewers.

The visual positioning is semiotically cohesive with the use of first-person pronoun “I” in the campaign slogan (Table 5) and the adolescents’ speeches to refer to themselves, and the use of the second-person pronoun “you” to address the target audience directly (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen [11]). The video advertisements also begin with the vocatives “Mum, Dad” to establish the target audience as parents, and to draw their attention and emotionally engage with them to pave the way for the intended message (cf. ref. [11]). The choices of visual and linguistic resources, thus, place viewers as the direct recipient of their message and part of the conversation (cf. ref. [7]), rather than as an observer of the scene, as in the other campaigns (see previous discussion).

Table 5

Linguistic analysis of Campaign 2 slogan

The semiotic choice of the desiderative Mental process “need” suggests that this message is what these young people feel and plead to their parents to comply with (cf. ref. [11]). To enhance the gravity of the message, the word “need” is stressed in a dark, harsh timbre (cf. ref. [61]), combined with the grim facial expressions on the young people as they speak (Figure 4).

Rather than passive agents whose decisions are made for them, the young people are visually and linguistically portrayed as competent, risk-knowledgeable social actors ([34,41]), who understand the risks involved (as shown in their speech, “I’ve heard of the damage it [alcohol] can do to my brain”) and have their say on the matter. However, their behaviours are later contradictorily portrayed as risk-taking and somewhat irrational by pushing boundaries to ask for alcohol (through speech “but I may change my mind later” and bargaining with the parents) and acting out when being denied (through visual image of a girl slamming her door while yelling). As such, the campaign acknowledges them as partially agentive agents with their own opinions and voices; however, they remain rebellious “risky” people who partake in risk-taking behaviours despite a certain level of risk awareness [43], and ultimately require parents’ guidance to show them what they truly “need” to manage risks, consistent with an “adultist” view of risk [35].

The complex parent–child relationships are also portrayed through the imagery of the young people expressing their anger, through the facial expressions (frowning) and actions (yelling and slamming the door) when parents refuse to supply alcohol. This constructs another risk that parents may face, that is, potentially damaging their relationships with their child if they choose to say “no” to providing alcohol, which has been pointed out as one of the potential reasons why parents may choose to supply alcohol [3]. Nonetheless, the health risk of alcohol evidently far outweighs any social risk, as the advertisements conclude that the teenagers ultimately need them to “be a parent,” whose responsibilities encompass making decisions that will ultimately benefit their child. In other words, the parents/audience (“you”) continue to assume their parental role as the managers of risk and the key determiners of risk boundaries and family rules [34,35], who must “say no” to keep the risks at bay.

6.4 Campaign 3: Whole-of-community approach

The third campaign features multiple forms of media texts, which call for all parents to not supply alcohol to their children.

Similar to Campaign 2, the word “need” is used in the slogan of the third campaign, which highlights the necessity of the message (Table 6). However, unlike Campaign 2, this message is sent from the perspective of the parents using the plural first-personal pronoun “we” instead of the singular “I.” The use of “we” alongside the adverb “all” refers to both the speaker and the target audience, which interpersonally engages the audience as part of the same in-group (cf. ref. [11]).

Table 6

Linguistic analysis of Campaign 3 slogan

In line with the linguistic texts, the video advertisements’ visual portrayals transition from showing a single family to the same family being surrounded by other adults (Figure 5). The visual placement of non-family members in a family setting creates a “marked” scene which blurs the line between the community (public) and the family (private). These adults, who are heard urging the father to say “no” and later praising him for refusing his teenaged daughter alcohol, metaphorically complement the all-inclusiveness of the message to include all parents alike. Praising the act of saying “no” also suggests that it is the socially approved choice within their community. The unanimity of the community members also indicates that in this envisioned community, youth alcohol consumption is not a normalised and accepted risk-taking behaviour [19], thus discouraging any leniency towards such behaviour. While the responsibility to control children’s risks still lies with the parent, it is expanded to include the wider community, who may pass judgement on the parent’s actions.

Figure 5

Family in a home setting being surrounded by other people.

Notably, the lexical choice of the teenaged child asking to “have some [alcohol]” instead of “grab a few beers” in Campaign 1 also serves to encompass supplying a small amount of alcohol within the premise of “alcohol supply.” As such, the advertisements seek to firmly dispute any ambiguity surrounding what “parental alcohol supply” means, as per other campaigns regarding the topic [16]. The approval of community members, in cohesion with the omnipotent voice-over “it’s easier to say no when we all say no,” addresses how knowing other parents’ decision to allow their children to drink may put pressure on parents to say “yes” [18]. The message and imagery further highlight the collective responsibility to control alcohol supply, as it helps alleviate the social pressure and make it easier for all parents to say “no.”

7 Discussion

Multimodal analyses of the video advertisements demonstrate how semiotic resources are selected and configured to construct the preferred meanings, that is, communicating risks related to underage alcohol consumption to parents of young people. Each campaign made use of different discourses of risk.

In Campaign 1, the main discourse is that of technico-scientific views, which privilege expert knowledge on the potential harms of underage alcohol consumption, which were taken as facts in the advertisement, rather than being challenged, critically reflected, or negotiated by the lay people as per contemporary society [20,22]. Medical expertise was particularly well received amongst the audiences [58], which confirms the significance of technico-scientific discourses in public health campaigns [48]. Of note, the discourses in this campaign are not grounded in statistical data and scientific knowledge, as would be expected in this perspective (cf. ref. [20]), but rather, rely on the observations of the experts and appeal to the audiences’ emotions via description and imagery of potential harms. The dark, grim visual portrayals and voices add to the severity of the risks being portrayed; thus, the advertisements of Campaign 1 can be said to have utilised the “semiotics of fear” to portray risks and nudge the parents/audience to do the “right” thing [6,53]. Nonetheless, fear may not work well in persuading parents, as they may consider these grim consequences to be those of the “Other” irresponsible parents who allow their children to drink heavily, and thus, may not see themselves as part of the target audiences whose behaviours may lead to such consequences [16].

The second and third campaigns, however, move on from the technico-scientific discourse and employ sociocultural factors and lived experiences to evoke emotional engagement from the parents. The second campaign can be said to construct risk discourses based on the “governmentality” perspective, which highlights individual responsibilities in controlling risks [34]. To say “no” to alcohol is semiotically constructed as a part of “being a parent” and aimed directly at the audience – rather than a hypothetical, imagined “Other” parent, thus leaving little room for misinterpreting to whom the message is aimed.

At the same time, the adolescents in Campaign 2 are constructed as complex individuals who are paradoxically risk-taking despite showing awareness of the potential risks of alcohol [43]. The contradictory behaviours with regards to risk suggest the irrational, “risky” nature of adolescence on the “risk gradient” [42], which requires surveillance and control of parents to guide their behaviours. This discourse is in line with the “adultist” views of risk, as parents are constructed as the person ultimately in charge of managing risks for children, despite the children being partially agentive and having their own risk knowledge and perceptions [35]. In addition, mentioning the social risk of damaging parent–child relationships also serves to acknowledge the constant negotiation and assessment of risks in parents’ decisions [38]. Nonetheless, the campaign stresses that the parental responsibility to manage risks for the child’s well-being far outweighs any potential threats to their personal relationships.

Finally, Campaign 3 is geared towards parental responsibility as part of a collective identity stemmed from community membership [28], while framing alcohol supply control in terms of the cultural unacceptability of risk behaviours [24]. Specifically, refusing alcohol supply to adolescents is portrayed as part of the social norms which are approved by the community. Instead of portraying a condemned act that is deviant from societal norms, as seen in other public health promotional campaigns (e.g. ref. [51]), the advertisements portray a “good” act of parenting that is praised by other adults, thus highlighting saying “no” to alcohol supply is the acceptable risk behaviour in this local culture [24]. By using the plural first-personal pronoun “we” and the marked placement of community members in a family setting, the advertisements frame alcohol supply control as a whole-of-community responsibility where every adult needs to say “no.” The acceptable behaviour towards risks, in turn, becomes a collective endeavour that helps other adult members of the community to say “no” to alcohol supply, which confirms in-group membership and community approvals (cf. ref. [37]). Interestingly, there is no explicit mention of alcohol-related physical harms to young people in this campaign, which suggests these harms have already been known to the community who collectively say “no” to providing alcohol. The social consequences go beyond physical threats to the individuals and threatens one’s social identity and sense of belonging [62]. In other words, the risk discourses here rely heavily on collective cultural beliefs and community membership [28], rather than through rational deliberation and awareness of physical threats, as in Campaigns 1 and 2. The third campaign, thus, establishes saying “no” to alcohol supply by invoking accepted cultural norms and social expectations of being a “good” parent in the Australian society.

Unlike Campaign 2, the teenaged daughter in Campaign 3 is portrayed as risk-engaging in risk behaviours by asking for alcohol without displaying risk knowledgeability and reflexivity (i.e. being aware of alcohol-related risks) [43]. Similarly, there is no mention of the risk of damaging the parent–child relationship when the provision of “some” alcohol is firmly denied, thus framing saying “no” to alcohol as the only acceptable, matter-of-fact course of action in this situation, without further negotiation or assessment of risk needed. Thus, only the second campaign portrays young people as complex social agents beyond being merely “risky” individuals, and alcohol supply control as a difficult decision requiring negotiation and assessment of the situation. From a socio-semiotic perspective, out of the three campaigns, Campaign 2 can be seen as a more dialogically “open” space, which explores and entertains other alternative positions (cf. ref. [63]) regarding underage alcohol consumption. Nonetheless, the discussion of alternate viewpoints is only entertained to a limited extent (cf. ref. [63]), where saying “no” to alcohol supply ultimately remains the only acceptable course of action. In no campaign are the adult parental figures shown as critically reflective social agents, who reflect and negotiate the potential harms of alcohol with other more positive (or less harmful) aspects of moderate alcohol consumption, such as disciplined pleasure, growth, or identity development that are characteristic of youth risk-taking [43,45,64], though this aspect has been discussed as part of harm prevention strategies in a different campaign. The advertising campaigns, thus, imagine a strict, non-negotiable “ideal” version of the self, who perceives alcohol-related risks and responds accordingly to the ways that are envisaged and directed in the advertisements (cf. ref. [44]). Beyond individual selfhood, the campaigns envisage a community where alcohol supply control is the cultural norm and expected behaviour, compliance to which is applauded (deviance would, by virtual, be condemned). These visions of selfhood and community, thus, form parts of the “governmental technologies” to regulate the actions and behaviours of people in a neo-liberal society (see Foucault, 1991), in this case, to control parental supply of alcohol.

Nonetheless, things may not always develop as intended, in terms of how the audiences truly interpret and align themselves with the texts and whether they change their behaviours; as health promotional campaigns “cannot will risk aware behaviours and dispositions into existence” ([44], p. 482). Public health campaigns, particularly those attempting to change youth risk-taking behaviours such as underage alcohol consumption, may face systematic difficulties, as risk-taking behaviours may serve complex purposes of building social relationships and valued identities of young people while being influenced by a myriad of sociocultural factors, making them less susceptible to change [43]. Thus, other strategies to influence behavioural changes are needed, and have often implemented alongside public health campaigns, such as public policies and laws limiting availability and access to alcohol, responsible services of alcohol amongst others [65]. The prevalence of adult drinking as a desirable social image may influence young people’s drinking behaviours [66], which potentially prevent such idealistic “governmental technologies” from effectively regulating and changing risk behaviours among young people through the campaigns. Considering the complexity of the issue, interventions to deal with alcohol use must reflect the specifics of the social, cultural, and situational contexts in which alcohol is consumed [67]. As such, further studies are beneficial to further our understanding of underage alcohol consumption as a risk and risk-taking behaviour, which may contribute to improving the impacts of public health campaigns.

8 Conclusion

The findings demonstrate the discursive construction of various risk discourses across multiple semiotic resources in public health campaigns to dissuade parental alcohol supply. The discourses vary between technico-scientific (expert warnings of serious adverse outcomes), governmentality (parental individual self-responsibility), and cultural-symbolic and aesthetic-cultural (collective responsibility as part of community membership). Altogether, they form a cohesive message to encourage the “correct” behaviours to manage alcohol-related risks. The risk discourses are presented in terms of the “adultist” perspective, wherein adults are the responsible risk managers for dependent adolescents, despite the latter’s developing risk awareness and autonomy. Through the risk discourses, the advertising campaigns form an “ideal” selfhood and community, where everyone is a responsible parent and member of the community by doing the “right” thing.

By using social semiotic concepts which highlight intentionality behind meaning-making, the multimodal analyses also illustrate how the selection and configuration of semiotic resources form intended meanings and target certain groups [56], in this case, parents. However, this study is limited in that the true intentions behind certain choices of semiotic resources cannot be confirmed with producers of the advertisements. Nonetheless, the analyses are not intended to “read the minds” of producers, but to illustrate how choices of words, images, and sounds may work individually and together to create meanings based on the social, political, and cultural contexts of the advertisements.

Another limitation of this study, itself a common criticism of textual analysis, is the lack of the target audiences’ interpretations of the texts in the real world, which may differ from what the advertisements have intended [68]. Specifically, the audiences may or may not see themselves in the imagined selfhood and identities being portrayed in the advertisements, which may affect the effectiveness of public health campaigns and guidelines for alcohol consumption [16,44]. As such, future research must understand the audience’s interpretations vis-à-vis their lived experiences and worldviews, by using other methodological frameworks, such as audience interviews to complement textual analyses [69]. This is particularly true with regards to alcohol consumption among young people, itself a risk-taking behaviour related to complex and varying ideas of pleasure, social and self-identity [19,43,44], and social capital [70], which in turn influence self-modification of drinking behaviours in situated contexts. Public health campaigns have the tendency to focus on risks and harms, while leaving little room for young people’s pleasure and enjoyment in their conceptualisation, despite moderate and disciplined enjoyment of alcohol being an acceptable, if not desirable, pleasure [19,64]. The negotiation of risk and pleasure in public health messaging could potentially be further explored in interviews to understand how it may influence adolescents and their parents’ understanding of alcohol-related risks and risk-taking behaviours. Complementing the analysis with interview data, thus, will allow for better understanding of the various factors that may shape the interpretations of public health campaigns by young people and their parents, which will have practical implications to improving their effectiveness and impacts of such campaigns among their target audiences.