Theory of Planned Behaviour: Measuring Adolescents Media Literacy and Alcohol Drinking Expectancies.

Covenant Journal of Communication

Abstract

Despite the accumulating research on effects of alcohol advertising content on youths and the several studies that have explored media literacy intervention in different contexts, there is still a need to quantitatively model if media literacy significantly alters adolescents drinking expectancies and which component of media literacy significantly alters these drinking expectancies. To achieve this objective, the Solomon-four experimental research design was applied within the context of the theory of planned behaviour and the media literacy framework to examine the alcohol expectancies of media literate and illiterate adolescents. With a sample size of 860 adolescents in Lagos State, the paper hypothesized that there is no significant difference in the level of alteration caused by the various components of media literacy to the drinking expectancies of media literates and illiterates. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant difference between media literacy treated and untreated adolescents; however, media literacy appears to exert a paradoxical effect on the drinking expectancies of adolescents. Based on this, the paper recommends that the operational media literacy framework 
as presented and used in Primark (200) to be revisited and modified to avoid conflicting outcomes and that media literacy could be adopted as one of the ways to reduce alcohol drinking expectancy in youths. 

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