TY - JOUR
T1 - Making news
T2 - The appearance of tobacco control organizations in newspaper coverage of tobacco control issues
AU - Wakefield, Melanie A.
AU - Brennan, Emily
AU - Durkin, Sarah J.
AU - McLeod, Kim
AU - Smith, Katherine C.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Purpose: To characterize the presence of advocacy groups in media coverage about tobacco issues. Design: A content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles. Setting: Australia. Sample: All 12 national and state capital daily newspapers published in Australia between 2004 and 2007. Measures: We coded each article for explicit mentions of any of 16 major national or state tobacco control advocacy groups; for the article type, prominence, and topic; for the tone of the event; and for the author's opinion. Analysis: A series of 2 × 2 χ2 analyses assessed the extent to which advocacy groups were more or less likely to be mentioned in articles of each type, prominence, topic, event impact, and opinion orientation. Results: Of the 4387 tobacco-related articles published over this period, 22% mentioned an advocacy group. There was a greater-than-expected proportion of advocacy groups mentioned in news articles with very high prominence (44%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 27.4, p <.001), high prominence (34%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 10.9, p,.001), and medium prominence (30%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 7.3, p =.007), and in articles covering events with mixed (30%; χ2 [1, N = 4387] = 10.0, p =.002) or positive (24%; χ2 [1, N = 4387] = 26.1, p <.001) implications for tobacco control. Conclusions: Australian tobacco control advocacy groups have a reasonable presence within the news discourse on tobacco control issues and so are likely to contribute to generating and shaping this discourse, particularly in relation to evolving and controversial issues.
AB - Purpose: To characterize the presence of advocacy groups in media coverage about tobacco issues. Design: A content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles. Setting: Australia. Sample: All 12 national and state capital daily newspapers published in Australia between 2004 and 2007. Measures: We coded each article for explicit mentions of any of 16 major national or state tobacco control advocacy groups; for the article type, prominence, and topic; for the tone of the event; and for the author's opinion. Analysis: A series of 2 × 2 χ2 analyses assessed the extent to which advocacy groups were more or less likely to be mentioned in articles of each type, prominence, topic, event impact, and opinion orientation. Results: Of the 4387 tobacco-related articles published over this period, 22% mentioned an advocacy group. There was a greater-than-expected proportion of advocacy groups mentioned in news articles with very high prominence (44%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 27.4, p <.001), high prominence (34%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 10.9, p,.001), and medium prominence (30%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 7.3, p =.007), and in articles covering events with mixed (30%; χ2 [1, N = 4387] = 10.0, p =.002) or positive (24%; χ2 [1, N = 4387] = 26.1, p <.001) implications for tobacco control. Conclusions: Australian tobacco control advocacy groups have a reasonable presence within the news discourse on tobacco control issues and so are likely to contribute to generating and shaping this discourse, particularly in relation to evolving and controversial issues.
KW - Advocacy
KW - Media
KW - Newspaper
KW - Prevention research
KW - Smoking control
KW - Tobacco
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U2 - 10.4278/ajhp.100304-QUAN-71
DO - 10.4278/ajhp.100304-QUAN-71
M3 - Article
C2 - 22208414
AN - SCOPUS:84860589298
SN - 0890-1171
VL - 26
SP - 166
EP - 171
JO - American Journal of Health Promotion
JF - American Journal of Health Promotion
IS - 3
ER -