SPECIAL COMMUNICATION

Every document and picture tells a story: using internal corporate document reviews, semiotics, and content analysis to assess tobacco advertising

S J Anderson¹, T Dewhirst² and P M Ling³

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]