SPECIAL COMMUNICATION
Every document and picture tells a story: using internal corporate document reviews, semiotics, and content analysis to assess tobacco advertising
1 Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
2 College of Commerce, Department of Management and Marketing, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
3 Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Pamela M Ling MD, MPH
Department of General Internal Medicine, CTCRE, Box 1390, 530 Parnassue Avenue, Suite 366, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-1390, USA; pling{at}medicine.ucsf.edu
In this article we present communication theory as a conceptual framework for conducting documents research on tobacco advertising strategies, and we discuss two methods for analysing advertisements: semiotics and content analysis. We provide concrete examples of how we have used tobacco industry documents archives and tobacco advertisement collections iteratively in our research to yield a synergistic analysis of these two complementary data sources. Tobacco promotion researchers should consider adopting these theoretical and methodological approaches.
Abbreviations: B&H, Benson & Hedges; B&W, Brown Williamson; ITL, Imperial Tobacco Limited; LTDL, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library; PM, Philip Morris; UCSF, University of California, San Francisco
Keywords: corporate documents; tobacco; advertising; research methods; communication
![]()
CiteULike
Complore
Connotea
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Dewhirst, T.
(2009). New directions in tobacco promotion and brand communication. Tobacco Control
18: 161-162
[Full Text] -
Nichter, M., Padmawati, S, Danardono, M, Ng, N, Prabandari, Y, Nichter, M.
(2009). Reading culture from tobacco advertisements in Indonesia. Tobacco Control
18: 98-107
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Hill, K. P., Ross, J. S., Egilman, D. S., Krumholz, H. M.
(2008). The ADVANTAGE Seeding Trial: A Review of Internal Documents. ANN INTERN MED
149: 251-258
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Ross, J. S., Hill, K. P., Egilman, D. S., Krumholz, H. M.
(2008). Guest Authorship and Ghostwriting in Publications Related to Rofecoxib: A Case Study of Industry Documents From Rofecoxib Litigation. JAMA
299: 1800-1812
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Braun, S, Mejia, R, Ling, P M, Perez-Stable, E J
(2008). Tobacco industry targeting youth in Argentina. Tobacco Control
17: 111-117
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
McDaniel, P. A, Malone, R. E
(2007). "I always thought they were all pure tobacco": American smokers' perceptions of "natural" cigarettes and tobacco industry advertising strategies. Tobacco Control
16: e7-e7
[Abstract] [Full Text]
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
