College Drinking
There are many stereotypes regarding college life and these stereotypes inform students, rightly or wrongly about ways to behave while attending school. Regardless of whether these stereotypical behaviors are detrimental or beneficial, you see them repeated by students in all regions and most ages. Films and television programs all feature certain aspects of college which are then repeated over and over again, regardless of the frequency they actually occur in real life. Most fictional representations of college life feature outrageous parties where alcohol flows like water and where adventures and misadventures happen because of the imbibing of said alcohol. Examples like Animal House and Old School and Van Wilder just to name a very select few show that in order to be considered cool and fun, you need to be willing to drink to an irresponsible level. Beer and wine and heavier liquors are supposed to be part of the college students' daily, or at the very least their weekend, diet. The key here is in the word "supposedly." Although there are usually parties on some college campuses and in some fraternity houses, this simply does not occur with the regularity that feature films and television would have people believe.
There is a phrase which those involved in health communication use to identify this difference between real alcohol consumption and the imagined. This phrase is "the culture of college drinking." As stated, films and television make it seem that every college student drinks heavily, attends wild parties regularly, and rarely has to deal with any consequences for their virulent alcohol consumption. The idea of the hard-drinking, hard-partying college student has become so ingrained in the cultural psyche, that college students begin their freshman years fully expecting to go to parties and drink heavily. Lederman & Stewart (2005) find that the images of drinking have been created but then are recreated on real-world campuses which add to the mythology of the boozy college party. Therefore, the students attend parties by people who have seen the same sorts...
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