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Review: Drink: Under the Influence

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Reviewer

Name

Mr Andy Pulman

Institution

Bournemouth University

Department

Institute of Health and Community Studies

Job title

IHCS Web Team Leader

Video Details

Title

Drink: Under the Influence

Country

UK

Duration (mins)

52 mins

Collection

Healthcare Productions

Year

1990

Description

Alcoholism and its role in society. A number of people giving their views concerning alcoholism.

Subject classification

Alcoholic beverages, Psychological effects, Alcohol education, Alcoholism, Social problems, Youth, Advertising, UK, Behavioural sciences, Cultural life

Intended audience

At HE level - could equally be used by undergrad or post grad students

Brief summary

A very useful primer on alcohol, its effects and case study stories although slightly dated in some places.

Review

Audience and Use

The intended audience for the video is wide ranging (it could be viewed by practitioners, students and the general public). It serves the needs of the audience well as containing a general overview (the first 5 segments), and then profiles case studies around specific elements of alcoholism such as problem drinking, denial, family issues and counselling (segments 6 to 12). Parts of this video could be used within the Wessex Bay Community - a virtual resource supporting face-to-face learning and teaching within IHCS courses at Bournemouth University. It comprises a range of residents and health and social facilities that reflect a seaside community with rural boundaries, similar to that in which some students are likely to practice. The community is used as a specific resource for directed learning and teaching activities within the pre-qualifying interprofessional education curriculum for nurses, midwives and social workers. It is also available for all IHCS students to access as a stand-alone resource, in order to support personal study and to encourage reflection and problem-solving in relation to actual patient and client experiences. Some of the theoretical cases in the community concern elements around alcoholism (one example being domestic abuse fuelled by alcohol) and would benefit from additional supplementary video case studies where real people talk about their experiences as seen in this video.

Content

The video gives an overview of alcoholism and its role in society. This is covered in detail and contains interviews with experts and case studies. A recent BBC documentary, "Rain in my Heart", gave an emotional account of the lives and deaths of alcoholics which covered this area recently in a more graphic and gritty style. In comparison this video (now 17 years old) is slightly dated in places. For example, the first segments on drinking and the problems associated with them come from the eighties where yuppies and mullet hairstyles appear and this I feel would tend to lessen the strength of the message for a current audience of student viewers. It would benefit from having more recent images added (e.g. current night time scenes in the UK) and be shot in the style of more recent documentaries like "Rain in My Heart". The case study material is strong enough to stand on its own and does not have similar problems with being out-of-date. The given descriptions are generally accurate but would be more useful if the case study participants could be identified in each segment. This would make it easier to locate a specific case study and follow it through as some span more than one segment. There seem to be no apparent accessibility issues with this video.

Technical issues

The full video takes quite a while to download in QuickTime format from the EMOL site as its 304MB in size. Once downloaded it was easy to play. The quality of the video is acceptable although the sound quality in some instances is not very good. For example, the narrator unlike the interviewees only comes through the left channel and the Jancis Robinson interview in the early segments has some reverb and echo on it that is very noticeable. The structure of the video into segments is very useful and helpful as a guide to finding relevant sections and particular items.

General comments

I think this is a very useful resource parts of which (specifically the case studies on their own) could be used in learning and teaching materials. To improve it's usefulness I would recommend separating out the case study stories so they could be accessed as individual segments. As mentioned above, I would also excise the eighties content to leave the professionals talking about the issue and replace this with more contemporary material. In the near future, I will hopefully be utilising these case studies in the Wessex Bay Community as outlined above.