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

S J Anderson; T Dewhirst; P M Ling

doi:10.1136/tc.2005.013854

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

Tob Control. 2006 Jun;15(3):254-61. doi: 10.1136/tc.2005.013854.

Authors

S J Anderson¹, T Dewhirst, P M Ling

Affiliation

¹ Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-1390, USA.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Advertising / methods*
Communication
Documentation
Humans
Information Storage and Retrieval / methods
Linguistics
Research Design
Smoking*
Tobacco Industry*

Grants and funding

CA-87472/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States