Act 199 will hurt legislators' intent

Despite the issue of complementary copy (media doing stories about advertisers), The Daily Collegian's Friday drink specials section is exactly what is needed. Even in "beer goggles" we can see that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's plan is going to blow up in its face. Now, the alcohol industry gets FREE advertising. Oops!

Let's hope that Act 199 is repealed and things can go back to the way they were. If not, don't be surprised if eventually alcohol is advertised again; only it won't be Budwiser, Rolling Rock or Icehouse. It will probably be something more like VICTORY GIN, bottled by authority of Big Brother.

William F. Yurasko
junior-media studies

Act 199 not most harmful censorship

States are now reviewing legislation to make it illegal for stores to sell CDs with parental advisory stickers to minors. Attempts have been made to ban Marilyn Manson and other such acts from playing venues in certain states, and fundamentalists are working feverishly to have him banned all together.

The word "bitch" cannot even appear on a CD in a store like Wal-Mart, yet they sell guns to any yokel who may want one. The list goes on.

There are so many more important issues concerning censorship today that will have a much larger impact on students' lives, but we ignore them, choosing rather to fight for our right to read the newspaper to see which watering hole may have the cheapest beer. I bet that the powers-that-be are sitting in their plush mansions laughing at us alcoholic students as they sign away musicians rights to freedom of speech and opinion.

To all students who oppose Act 199: Please go a little further so as to concern yourselves with other acts of censorship, which go beyond our love for alcohol.

I mean, could you imagine a United States in which all we can listen to legally is Hanson, but we can find out what bar has the cheapest alcohol? I hope not.

Martin Austermuhle
freshman-international business

Banning alcohol ads doesn't stop drinking

A review article by Reginald Smart in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol (1988) concluded that "advertising bans have little impact on overall sales of alcohol." A recent book by Jack Calfee, Fear of Persuasion: A New Perspective on Advertising and Regulation (Agora, 1997), reached the same conclusion. The implication of these reviews is that advertising alters brand shares only, and not total or beverage consumption. Any connection with alcohol abuse is spurious.

In several articles and papers, my own research supports this conclusion. In an article published in the Journal of Regulatory Economics (1990), I examined the effect of banning billboards and price advertising of alcohol. Neither restriction affected consumption at the state level.

In an article with John Moran in Applied Economics (1995), we examined national advertising expenditures on alcohol for the period 1964 to 1990. We concluded that changes in alcohol advertising had no effect on total or beverage consumption. In more recent work, I split advertising levels into broadcast and print media and used quarterly data for 1977 to 1994. The same conclusion is reached.

Consumption of alcohol in the United States has not increased since about 1980, in both total and per capita terms. Indeed, alcohol use is now at about the same level it was in 1964, despite higher levels of advertising. A basic reason for slow or negative market growth is major changes in the age composition of the population (Nelson, Empirical Economics, 1997).

In a slow-growing market, it is easy to confuse the growth of individual companies or brands with growth of the overall market. Trying to control individual behavior and irresponsible alcohol use by banning advertising is a bit like trying to get more people to vote by banning political advertising. It won't work.

Jon Nelson
professor of economics

Academic assembly can help students

The Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly can help.

For the last year, Academic Assembly has been evolving quietly. We now have the capacity to work for you. But to do our best, we need your help. As a representative institution, the Assembly requests your input. We believe that if you provide us with feedback, we are likely to represent you better. I'll discuss what we're doing and then I'll explain how you can participate.

Our objective is to benefit you in three ways: by representing you before the administration and the University Faculty Senate, by promoting programs that enhance our learning community and by informing you of your academic rights and responsibilities.

More specifically, we're working on 10 projects; such as, researching complaints on the English proficiency of various professors and teaching assistants, publishing a scheduling guide with your opinions of general education classes and professors, assisting those with individual academic complaints or concerns, discussing with faculty and administrators the Freshman Seminar implementation, helping with the design of a new classroom facility and devising a monthly award which would promote quality in teaching and learning.

You can participate on these or other projects by discussing ideas with your representatives or by joining the Assembly. Each of you has two representatives; a representative from your undergraduate student council and the student faculty senator for your college.

Furthermore, any of you can join our team through the Assembly Support Staff. The Support Staff helps us with our projects; they also gain valuable experience working with USG.

Stop by the USG office (203A HUB) to pick up information on contacting your representatives or on joining the Assembly Support Staff. We look forward to your ideas.

Desha M. Girod
Academic Assembly president