Cultural differences in the perception of magazine alcohol advertisements by Israeli Jewish, Moslem, Druze and Christian high school students.

Abstract

This article describes the Israeli part of an international comparative research project conducted simultaneously in 1988 also in Australia and in the U.S.A., in order to determine the attitudes of high school students from different nations and cultures toward alcohol advertising. The Israeli study used a set of 64 magazine alcohol advertisements from 10 countries and with the help of an open-ended questionnaire examined differences and similarities in the perception of Israeli and foreign advertisements by Jewish, Moslem, Druze and Christian teenagers. Each response was coded twice. The first code indicated the general tone of the response and the second code indicated its theme. The article presents selected general results and conclusions. The results have implications for designing alcohol abuse education messages and can aid alcohol advertisers interested in responsible advertising to find advertising standards suitable to each culture.