Flaunting it on Facebook: Young adults, drinking cultures and the cult of celebrity

Copyright © Antonia Lyons; Tim McCreanor; Fiona Hutton; Ian Goodwin; Helen Moewaka Barnes; Christine Griffin; Kerryellen Vroman; Acushla Dee O’Carroll; Patricia Niland; Lina Samu Print publication available from: http://www.drinkingcultures.info/Young adults in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ) regularly engage in heavy drinking episodes with groups of friends within a collective culture of intoxication to ‘have fun’ and ‘be sociable’. This population has also rapidly increased their use of new social networking technologies (e.g. mobile camera/ video phones; Facebook and YouTube) and are said to be obsessed with identity, image and celebrity. This research project explored the ways in which new technologies are being used by a range of young people (and others, including marketers) in drinking practices and drinking cultures in Aotearoa/NZ. It also explored how these technologies impact on young adults’ behaviours and identities, and how this varies across young adults of diverse ethnicities (Maori [indigenous people of NZ], Pasifika [people descended from the Pacific Islands] and Pakeha [people of European descent]), social classes and genders. We collected data from a large and diverse sample of young adults aged 18-25 years employing novel and innovative methodologies across three data collection stages. In total 141 participants took part in 34 friendship focus group discussions (12 Pakeha, 12 Maori and 10 Pasifika groups) while 23 young adults showed and discussed their Facebook pages during an individual interview that involved screencapture software and video recordings. Popular online material regarding drinking alcohol was also collected (via groups, interviews, and web searches), providing a database of 487 links to relevant material (including websites, apps, and games). Critical and in-depth qualitative analyses across these multimodal datasets were undertaken. Key findings demonstrated that social technologies play a crucial role in young adults’ drinking cultures and processes of identity construction. Consuming alcohol to a point of intoxication was a commonplace leisure-time activity for most of the young adult participants, and social network technologies were fully integrated into their drinking cultures. Facebook was employed by all participants and was used before, during and following drinking episodes. Uploading and sharing photos on Facebook was particularly central to young people’s drinking cultures and the ongoing creation of their identities. This involved a great deal of Facebook ‘work’ to ensure appropriate identity displays such as tagging (the addition of explanatory or identifying labels) and untagging photos. Being visible online was crucial for many young adults, and they put significant amounts of time and energy into updating and maintaining Facebook pages, particularly with material regarding drinking practices and events. However this was not consistent across the sample, and our findings revealed nuanced and complex ways in which people from different ethnicities, genders and social classes engaged with drinking cultures and new technologies in different ways, reflecting their positioning within the social structure. Pakeha shared their drinking practices online with relatively little reflection, while Pasifika and Maori participants were more likely to discuss avoiding online displays of drinking and demonstrated greater reflexive self-surveillance. Females spoke of being more aware of normative expectations around gender than males, and described particular forms of online identity displays (e.g. moderated intake, controlled selfdetermination). Participants from upper socio-economic groups expressed less concern than others about both drinking and posting material online. Celebrity culture was actively engaged with, in part at least, as a means of expressing what it is to be a young adult in contemporary society, and reinforcing the need for young people to engage in their own everyday practices of ‘celebritising’ themselves through drinking cultures online. Alcohol companies employed social media to market their products to young people in sophisticated ways that meant the campaigns and actions were rarely perceived as marketing. Online alcohol marketing initiatives were actively appropriated by young people and reproduced within their Facebook pages to present tastes and preferences, facilitate social interaction, construct identities, and more generally develop cultural capital. These commercial activities within the commercial platforms that constitute social networking systems contribute heavily to a general ‘culture of intoxication’ while simultaneously allowing young people to ‘create’ and ‘produce’ themselves online via the sharing of consumption ‘choices’, online interactions and activities

Assessment of occupational noise-induced hearing loss for ACC: A practical guide for otolaryngologists

Several people have shared their expertise and support in developing this guideline. The first version was developed and published in 2011. ACC, occupational medicine specialists and otorhinolaryngologists (ORLs) collaborated to provide practical guidance on how to assess whether noised-induced hearing loss (NIHL) was caused by occupational exposure. ACC’s Audiology Advisor requested that the 2011 guideline be updated. We convened an expert advisory group and, alongside evidence-based research updated since 2011, provided expert consensus knowledge in this area. This 2018 version of the guideline is now presented to you to inform your specialist assessments of ACC ONIHL clients. The New Zealand Society of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery endorsed the guideline on 5 October 2018.The guideline includes summaries of ACC-commissioned systematic literature reviews on key aspects of ONIHL, and references to resources to assist you to provide robust, evidence- based reports. Background information on relevant legislation and specific details of the New Zealand context, including useful guidance on carrying out assessments for third parties, are also included. See Appendix A for the 2018 Otolaryngologist Report (ACC723)

Metaphors of menopause in medicine : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Medical textbooks have previously represented women’s bodies and menopause life transitions by using notions of ‘machine productivity’ and ‘machine breakdown’ (Martin, 1987). This study aimed to explore whether these representations have changed, especially given recent HRT clinical trial results. Eight relevant compulsory medical textbooks for first and second year medical students at two New Zealand Universities were identified. A Foucauldian discourse analysis (Parker, 1990) was undertaken on relevant content to identify representations of menopause, HRT, women’s bodies, and ageing. Five major discourses were employed in the textbooks in descriptions of menopause and HRT: failure, estrogen deficiency as disease; HRT as saviour; obscurity and the new discovery discourse. Menopause continues to be represented as resulting from a ‘failure’ of a machine-like body. Although the recent HRT clinical trials were reported as a serious risk factor in half of the textbooks, HRT was also represented as a saviour particularly against postmenopausal osteoporosis. The discovery of ‘new’ drugs to ‘treat’ HRT and the ‘postmenopausal’ patient were heralded with much excitement. Medical textbooks continue to use failure discourses to describe women’s bodies at menopause. New risk-based HRT assessments for ‘patients’ with menopause ‘symptoms’ are promoted. These portrayals reinforce linear and reductionist ways of thinking about menopause and women at midlife and provide few spaces for resistance or alternative constructions to more accurately reflect women’s embodied worlds

Young adults' friendships : over a network, over a drink : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Friendship is a crucial relationship for young adults, yet their own sense-making of friendship within their everyday social lives remains under-explored. As a social practice, friendship is constituted through people’s shared meanings within everyday contexts. Two central social contexts for young adults are social networking sites (SNSs) and drinking. It was theorised that young adults bring shared friendship meanings to these contexts which, in turn, engage with their friendship practices, and these interactions are key to young adults’ understandings of friendship. The aims of this research were firstly to explore young adults’ friendships in relation to their uses of SNSs; secondly, to explore their friendships in relation to their drinking practices; and thirdly, to explore their uses of SNSs within the context of their drinking and friendships. Twelve same and mixed-gender friendship discussion groups were conducted with fifty-one New Zealand European young adults (18-25 years). Seven participants also showed the researcher their own Facebook pages in individual interviews. This method is a form of a ‘go-along’ walking tour of an informant’s significant places, adapted to navigating through an online SNS space. Foucauldian discursive analyses identified that friendship was constructed through discourses of ‘social pleasure’, ‘time and effort’, ‘protection’ and ‘self-authenticity’. These friendship discourses were enacted in particular ways within Facebook and within drinking practices, involving pleasures and tensions that threatened and challenged friendships. Friendship as ‘social pleasure’ was a primary shared meaning to appropriate Facebook, and to engage in drinking practices. Uses of Facebook, however, required friends to perform intensive friendship response, protection, privacy and identity work, and drinking also required friends’ protection from drinking harms. Friendship tensions were demonstrated in the effort required to maintain a ‘bad but good overall’ drinking night and to always have positive drinking photo displays; effectively airbrushing drinking practices offline and online. This research provides new knowledge of the complexities and work involved for young adults to ‘do’ their friendships within a technologically mediated social world, and within an entrenched societal drinking culture. This research contributes key insights for health initiatives (particularly alcohol harm-reduction strategies) that seek to promote healthier lives for young adults

Assessment of occupational noise-induced hearing loss for ACC A practical guide for otolaryngologists

This Guide provides practical information for assessors providing specialist assessments for ACC occupational noise-induced hearing loss clients. It includes summaries of major literature reviews commissioned by ACC on key aspects of background information, as well as references to resources to assist assessors in providing high quality, evidence-based reports. Background information on relevant legislation and specific details of the New Zealand context, including useful guidance on carrying out assessments for third parties, are included. Current versions of key forms are presented in the Appendices – specifically the client-completed history form (ACC724) and the assessment form (ACC723). Both of these have been redesigned as part of the interaction between ACC and representatives of the New Zealand Society of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

Assessment of occupational noise-induced hearing loss for ACC A practical guide for otolaryngologists

This Guide provides practical information for assessors providing specialist assessments for ACC occupational noise-induced hearing loss clients. It includes summaries of major literature reviews commissioned by ACC on key aspects of background information, as well as references to resources to assist assessors in providing high quality, evidence-based reports. Background information on relevant legislation and specific details of the New Zealand context, including useful guidance on carrying out assessments for third parties, are included. Current versions of key forms are presented in the Appendices – specifically the client-completed history form (ACC724) and the assessment form (ACC723). Both of these have been redesigned as part of the interaction between ACC and representatives of the New Zealand Society of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

Assessment of occupational noise-induced hearing loss for ACC: A practical guide for otolaryngologists

Several people have shared their expertise and support in developing this guideline. The first version was developed and published in 2011. ACC, occupational medicine specialists and otorhinolaryngologists (ORLs) collaborated to provide practical guidance on how to assess whether noised-induced hearing loss (NIHL) was caused by occupational exposure. ACC’s Audiology Advisor requested that the 2011 guideline be updated. We convened an expert advisory group and, alongside evidence-based research updated since 2011, provided expert consensus knowledge in this area. This 2018 version of the guideline is now presented to you to inform your specialist assessments of ACC ONIHL clients. The New Zealand Society of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery endorsed the guideline on 5 October 2018.The guideline includes summaries of ACC-commissioned systematic literature reviews on key aspects of ONIHL, and references to resources to assist you to provide robust, evidence- based reports. Background information on relevant legislation and specific details of the New Zealand context, including useful guidance on carrying out assessments for third parties, are also included. See Appendix A for the 2018 Otolaryngologist Report (ACC723)

Health emergency management in Aotearoa New Zealand: Making sense of professional development

Objective: To explore how health emergency management (HEM) personnel make sense of professional development, such as education and training, in their everyday roles and responsibilities within an increasingly complex emergency management and disaster field.Design: This in-depth qualitative study comprised of semistructured interviews with 10 Aotearoa New Zealand HEM personnel from a range of healthcare professions, including emergency managers, nurses, clinical support, and paramedics. The thematic, data-driven approach was exploratory. The research identified inductively significant thematic concepts relating to professional development from the health emergency personnel’s talk about their roles and responsibilities.Results: The authors identified four themes relating to professional development in the participants’ talk: test yourself under pressure; selling what we do; under the pump; and real stuff that actually makes a difference. These themes represent shared sense-making about how the participants negotiated their professional development needs and the needs of others while performing their everyday roles and responsibilities. Conclusions: Our findings support the production of local and contextually driven knowledge that highlights how HEM personnel discuss professional development as strengths, tensions, challenges, and knowledge gaps. These insights contribute to a broader understanding of what needs to be taken into account when developing competencies, skill sets, and training programs to promote professional development in an increasingly complex emergency management and disaster field