1. Bell Ringer Open your student workbook to page 61.
Under the heading titled Journal Entry, write a few sentences of the different kinds of media you see and hear in your everyday life.

2. Unit 5: Tobacco, Alcohol & Other Drug Prevention
Lesson 11: Countering Media Influences

3. Healthy Behavior Outcomes
Avoid misuse and abuse of over-the-counter and prescription drugs.
Avoid the use of illegal drugs.

4. Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
Analyze how media can influence choices to use tobacco, alcohol or other drugs.
Counteract media messages that promote tobacco, alcohol or other drug use.

5. Model Advertising Alcohol Message
During the Super Bowl, there was a beer commercial that showed a group of young, good- looking people at a party, drinking beer and having a great time. One person in the commercial was being made fun of because he wasn’t drinking the beer being advertised. At the end of the commercial, he tried the advertised beer and everybody at the party cheered.

6. What are some of the messages being sent about drinking beer in this commercial?
How does this commercial try to appeal to the target audience, the group or groups of people it is intended to reach and influence?

7. Based on what you have learned, what effects or negative consequences are being left out of advertisements and many media messages about alcohol use?
Slurred speech
Poor judgement
People becoming aggressive or violent
Risky sexual behaviors
Consequence of drinking and driving
Hangovers, headaches, blackouts
Alcohol poisoning
Addiction

8. Based on what you have learned, what effects or negative consequences are being left out of advertisements and many media messages about tobacco use?
Smelly hair and clothes
Declines in physical stamina
Other people being bothered by smoke
Lung cancer, mouth cancer
Addiction

9. Why aren’t these negative consequences of alcohol and tobacco included in commercials, movies, songs, and other media?

10. Summary
The negative consequences are typically not included in media messages about alcohol and tobacco use because alcohol and tobacco companies are trying to sell their product and make a profit.
It would be hard to create the image of alcohol or tobacco use being sexy, cool or otherwise desirable if they showed the many negative things that can happen from using these drugs.

11. Summary (cont.)
Media messages that promote drug use benefit the company that created them.
They are not thinking about what is best for the listener or viewer.
This is why it is important to recognize how and why different media may be trying to influence your choice around drugs.

12. Why is it important to learn how to accurately analyze media messages regarding alcohol and other drug use?