Media Literacy Shields South Korean Teens From Pro-Alcohol Messages, Study Finds

Adolescents in South Korea are immersed in a media environment where alcohol is everywhere: in television dramas where characters bond over soju, in celebrity endorsements, in convenience store advertising, and increasingly in the curated drinking scenes that circulate on social media. A new study suggests that the ability to critically decode these messages may be one of the most underused tools for protecting young people from early drinking. The research, published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies by Sunhee Park of Kyung Hee University, measured alcohol media literacy among South Korean high school students and found that those with stronger critical skills drank less, held more negative perceptions of drinking norms, and viewed alcohol less favorably than their peers.

Alcohol media literacy, often abbreviated AML, refers to a specific set of cognitive skills: the capacity to recognize that media messages about alcohol are constructed with persuasive intent, to identify the techniques used to make drinking appear glamorous or socially rewarding, to detect missing information such as the health and social costs of alcohol use, and to evaluate the credibility and motivations behind pro-alcohol content. The concept grows out of broader media literacy theory, particularly the message interpretation process model developed by Erica Weintraub Austin and colleagues, which proposes that adolescents compare what media portrayals suggest against what they observe in the real world when forming beliefs about risky behaviors. When young viewers lack the analytical tools to interrogate portrayals of drinking, those portrayals can function like a super peer, a reference point that shapes what feels normal.

The scale of exposure to pro-alcohol media messages among South Korean adolescents is well documented. Alcohol advertising appears across television, transit, and digital platforms, and Korean popular culture exports drinking scenes to a global audience through dramas and variety shows. Prior Korean studies have linked advertising exposure to drinking intentions among adolescents who have never consumed alcohol, and to riskier drinking patterns among those who already drink. International meta-analyses point in the same direction, showing consistent associations between alcohol-related social media use and both consumption levels and alcohol-related problems in young people. What remained unclear, until now, was whether alcohol media literacy plays the same protective role in South Korea that it has demonstrated in Western contexts such as the United States and Australia.

To answer that question, Park conducted a cross-sectional study using self-report data collected in 2021 from 589 high school students. The study had two goals. The first was descriptive: to quantify the average level of alcohol media literacy in the sample using a Korean-language AML scale. The second was analytical: to test whether AML scores were associated with three distinct drinking-related characteristics, namely drinking behavior, drinking norms, and drinking attitudes. Drinking norms capture what adolescents believe about how common and acceptable drinking is among their peers, while attitudes reflect their personal evaluations of alcohol use. The study received ethics approval from Kyung Hee University’s institutional review board, and written informed consent was obtained from participants and their parents or guardians.

The average AML score in the sample came out at 3.84 points, a figure the author interpreted as leaving considerable room for improvement. In other words, even in one of the world’s most connected societies, where internet access approaches universality, most students showed only moderate ability to critically analyze the alcohol messages saturating their media diet. This finding matters because the theoretical framework underlying the study treats media literacy as a modifiable protective factor, something that can be strengthened through education rather than a fixed trait. A middling average score across nearly 600 students suggests that a large share of South Korean teenagers are processing pro-alcohol content with limited critical defenses.

The statistical approach reflected the awkward distribution of the drinking data. Alcohol consumption among adolescents is a count-type outcome with a large cluster of zeros, since many high school students have never drunk at all, and the nonzero values are typically skewed. To handle this, the study used zero-inflated negative binomial regression, a two-part model that simultaneously estimates the odds of being a nondrinker and the amount of drinking among those who do drink. This class of model is well suited to overdispersed count data where ordinary regression assumptions fail. For drinking norms and attitudes, which are continuous measures, the study used multiple linear regression. In all analyses, the researcher controlled for covariates that could plausibly influence the associations, including demographic and psychosocial factors known to shape adolescent drinking.

The results were consistent across all three outcomes. After adjustment, higher alcohol media literacy was significantly associated with lower alcohol consumption, meaning students with stronger critical media skills were more likely to abstain and, among drinkers, to consume less. Higher AML was also linked to more negative drinking norms, suggesting that media-literate students were less likely to believe that drinking is widespread or socially expected among their peers. Finally, higher AML predicted more negative drinking attitudes, indicating a more skeptical personal stance toward alcohol. Because the associations held after controlling for covariates, and because they align with a substantial body of prior research, the study concludes that AML functions as a protective factor against adolescent drinking-related problems in the South Korean context.

The theoretical significance of these findings lies in how media literacy appears to intervene in the pathway from exposure to behavior. Pro-alcohol media messages work partly by inflating perceived norms, making drinking seem like a universal and desirable activity. The super-peer framework holds that adolescents who interpret media messages uncritically absorb these distorted norms, which then feed more favorable attitudes and, ultimately, drinking behavior. Media literacy disrupts this chain at its source by teaching students to recognize persuasion techniques, question the motives behind alcohol marketing, and notice what the messages omit. The present findings suggest that this disruption operates in South Korea just as it does elsewhere, shaping not only what adolescents do but what they believe about the social world around them.

The practical implications are equally direct. The study argues that active strategies, most notably alcohol media literacy education, should be implemented in South Korea to raise AML levels and thereby prevent and reduce adolescent alcohol use. Media literacy interventions have a track record elsewhere: school-based programs in Australia have been evaluated in randomized and pilot studies with promising results, and alcohol-specific curricula such as expectancy challenge programs have shown effects on high school students’ beliefs about alcohol. South Korea already publishes manuals for youth alcohol prevention education through its health authorities, but the new findings suggest that embedding critical media analysis into those programs, and into school curricula more broadly, could strengthen their impact at a moment when digital alcohol marketing is expanding faster than traditional regulation can track.

Several caveats temper the conclusions. The study’s cross-sectional design captures associations at a single point in time, so it cannot establish whether higher media literacy causes lower drinking, whether drinking experience shapes media literacy, or whether both are influenced by unmeasured factors. Self-report data collected in 2021 are also vulnerable to recall and social desirability bias, particularly on sensitive topics like underage drinking, and the data predate the most recent shifts in how Korean teens consume media. Still, the consistency of the pattern across behavior, norms, and attitudes, and its agreement with international evidence, gives the findings weight. For a country where drinking remains deeply woven into social life and where adolescents face relentless exposure to pro-alcohol imagery, the message is clear: teaching young people to see through the message may be as important as trying to limit how often they see it.

Subject of Research: Alcohol media literacy and its association with drinking behavior, norms, and attitudes among South Korean adolescents

Article Title: Relationships of Alcohol Media Literacy With Drinking Behavior, Norms, and Attitudes Among South Korean Adolescents

Article References: Park, S. (2026). Relationships of Alcohol Media Literacy With Drinking Behavior, Norms, and Attitudes Among South Korean Adolescents. Journal of Child and Family Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-026-03334-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10826-026-03334-w

Keywords: alcohol media literacy, adolescents, South Korea, drinking behavior, drinking norms, drinking attitudes, media literacy education, pro-alcohol media messages, zero-inflated negative binomial regression, adolescent alcohol prevention, Journal of Child and Family Studies, cross-sectional study