Portrayal of Substance Use Depicted in Family Guy - Coursework Example

Portrayal of Substance Use Depicted in Family Guy Introduction The American academy of pediatrics (AAP) is concerned made up of American pediatric professionals who aim at providing child health information to the parents. Their major concern is to ensure the mental, physical and social health of infants, teenagers, and the young adults. They provide information that is scientifically approved and supported and that concerns the health of all children including the infants and teenagers. AAP is concerned that media plays a great role in causing substance abuse to the adolescents. They view this to be caused by the large number of advertisements presented in the media concerning these drugs, for instance those concerning tobacco and alcohol. AAP also blames media for presenting programs and movies that easily exposes the teenagers to substance abuse attributing tobacco and alcohol to being the main threat. Portrayal of substance abuse in family guy relates to the concerns raised by AAP on substance abuse exposure presented by the media. Family guy therefore is an animation series that will more likely expose many adolescents to substance abuse as its characters view the use of drugs as a normal thing (Lyndon, 2011). Many teenagers are likely to watch family guy and adopt substance abuse behaviors from the movie. This is because given that family guy is a cartoon movie, many teenagers are likely to enjoy watching it. However, the aspects revealed by the characters in the movie are likely to cause the adolescents who watch it to turn to substance abuse. The characters in the movie are seen to engage in substance abuse with the main character peter viewing substance abuse as a normal activity and engaging in drinking of alcohol. Peter in this case is likely to influence many teenagers to drinking alcohol believing that it is something good and normal as they see in the movie. The alcohol drinking scenes in the movie are also revealed by Brian who is also referred to as the family pet. Brian is reflected as being an alcoholic and this may influence the teenagers who watch the movie to turn to drinking alcohol. (AutographFish0, 2011). The series also contain various smoking scenes whereby Brian is seen to smoke marijuana in many cases. The smoking aspect is also reflected by the song that is used in the movie, which concerns legalizing of marijuana. These scenes influence the teenagers to experiment smoking as they see the characters doing. The idea that family guy influences teenagers to substance abuse is therefore consistent with the information obtained from the studies that media has a part in causing drug and substance abuse in teenagers. The aspects are in agreement with what is reflected by Levinthal (2013), where a relationship is seen to exist between adolescents’ substance abuse and media. AAP’s main concern is that the more the young children and adolescents are exposed to drug and substance abuse at a tender age, the more likely they are to engage in more drugs in the later stages of lives. AAP views the portrayal of media as being a leading factor to abusing drugs by the adolescents, considering that they usually long to experience what they see in the media concerning the drugs. The first media portray addressed is the advertisements that are presented in the media concerning drugs. These advertisements are viewed to have the ability of influencing adolescents to trying to use drugs since the advertisements focus on using celebrities and popular music, or models in order to make the advertisements more appealing. This largely causes the adolescents to feel the urge of trying to use the drugs in order to experience the same feeling that is reflected in the advertisements. AAP views that the drinking and smoking presented in media advertisements are usually presented in ways that they appear as normal activities and therefore causing the teenagers to feel the need for experimenting what they see. It is approximated that 30 percent of teenagers’ smoking of tobacco and drinking of alcohol is caused by the advertisement. This finding by AAP falls in agreement from the information obtained from Levinthal (2013) which reveals that media portrayal of advertisements concerning drugs and substance abuse cause have a great influence to drug abuse by the adolescents. AAP reveals a statistic whereby a large percentage of tobacco smokers are observed to start smoking at their tender teen age as a result of the appealing advertisements that they see on the media concerning tobacco. The tobacco industry has as well been observed to target the young people to smoking through the advertisements that they present. They make the advertisements so appealing revealing positive aspects that the smokers are meant to experience such as being adventurous, and hide the negative effects that result from smoking such as chronic diseases and deaths. Advertisements concerning alcohol in addition are presented in a way that alcohol drinking appears appealing in the eyes of the teenagers. They focus on using images of young people who seem to have good times in their lives by drinking alcohol. Adolescents on viewing the advertisements feel the need for experimenting on drinking in order to experience the same feeling. Alcohol producers are able to advertise more of their brands with fewer restrictions compared to the tobacco producers. This enables them to present information to the teenagers concerning the various available brands and teenagers take this as an opportunity for experimenting on these different brands. They also focus on advertising the alcohols on shows that oriented on adolescents with the aim of catching their attention and response in form of experimenting on drinking. AAP is also concerned about drugs availability in the entertainment media whereby many scenes reveal smoking as a normal thing. Box office movies have been observed to have a high rate of exposure to smoking scenes to the adolescents who watch those movies. The adolescents are therefore likely to exercise what they see in the movies, as they tend to start smoking after watching these movies. They get interested in experimenting on what they see and wanting to feel what the movie actors feel. AAP also states that other forms of media entertainment such as music also expose teenagers to alcohol drinking and tobacco smoking. There is however a reduced rate of influence in cases where parents have some control to the media content that their children are allowed to watch or listen to. The teenagers whose parents have control of what their children watch are observed to experience low levels of influence to drugs and substance abuse. This is in consistence with what is observed in the studies that media plays a role in influencing adolescents to drugs and substance abuse. Another point of comparison is concerning the AAP’s view on what is the major cause of drugs and substance abuse in adolescents as it reveals that the major cause is media portrayal of these drugs. This point is also found in the studies where media is observed as the major cause of substance abuse in adolescents. Media therefore is observed to from different perspectives to be the major cause of substance and drug abuse in adolescents. The portrayal of media in this respect is observed from studies in different fields though its various form of presentation to the public. This portrayal has several implications that affect the operations of different forms of media and relationship of media with the public. The first implication is that the public tend to lose interest on the advertisements and entertainment forms that are presented in the media and many people tend to limit their children’s access to media. This has a negative effect to the concerned forms of media as it leads to a reduction in the number of viewers who access their contents. Another implication is to the producers of these entertainment forms that present various drug scenes to the viewers. The entertainment forms especially movies face experience a fall in the rate of the audience that they get if parents restrict their children from accessing them. Another implication is that the government might put restrictions on the type of advertisements that should be allowed and presented in the media. It might restrict the presentation of advertisements concerning drugs such as those that concern alcohol and tobacco. This in consequence will affect the marketing capability of the concerned industries and will lead to a reduction in the sales levels that they are able to attain (Strasburger, 2010). Another implication is that there will be a reduction in the level of sales that is attained by the various media entertainment forms, as they will experience low sales in selling their content. The message portrayed is that media is causing largely the abuse of drugs to adolescents and therefore the increasing rate of abuse drug abuse among the adolescents is because of what they see in the media. It also means that the drugs producing companies take advantage of the freedom that they have to media access, to target the adolescents and young adults. This has led to the increased influence of the adolescents to using drugs. Another message reflected from this portrayal is that media is not used to show the true information concerning these drugs but to just show the appealing and positive aspects. It however ignores the negative effects that result from these drugs. The media however should focus on presenting both the positive and the negative effects that result from the use of drugs and not presenting the appealing part. AAP therefore provides a number of guidelines concerning the media portrayal and these include the fact that pediatricians encouraging removal of media that is not supervised especially in their children’s bedrooms. The second guideline is limiting children from accessing venues with substance abuse and another being parents to limit young children from viewing some movies such as movies that are R-rated. Another guideline is parents to ensure that they view movies with their children and discuss the content that is presented and to ensure that the televisions remain off during evening meals. Pediatricians also advocate for holding magazines and newspapers that do not contain advertisements concerning drugs and should also advocate for banning of those advertisements. They should as well advocate for conducting antidrug campaigns in the country and should encourage the allocation of money to conduct research concerning adolescents and drugs. They should encourage the industry of entertainment to be more sensitive to children and focus on more advertisements that discourage smoking (American Academy Pediatrics, 2010). Conclusion In conclusion, media is reflected from several perspectives to cause drug and substance abuse. The paper has discussed how AAP portrays media as being the key factor that causes drug abuse among the adolescents. The family guy series has also been assessed in this respect of having the likelihood of causing drug and substance abuse to adolescents. The guidelines offered by AAP in respect to the media portrayal have finally been evaluated at the end of the paper. References American Academy of Pediatrics. (2010). Policy statement- children, adolescents, substance abuse and the media. Pediatrics journal, 126, 4: 791-799. AutographFish0. (2011). Family Guy-Peter on Drugs [Video file].      Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6OShU0BgQc Levinthal, C. F. (2013). Drugs, Behavior, and Modern Society. Pearson Learning Solutions. VitalBook file. Lyndon, A. (2011). All You Need to Know. Retrieved from: https://familyguyinfo.wordpress.com/about/ Strasburger, V. C. (2010). Children, Adolescents, Substance Abuse and the Media. Retrieved from: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/4/791.ful       Read More