TOBACCO AND MEDIA EFFECTS

Although cigarette smoking by adults has declined steadily since the 1960s, smoking by adolescents has risen sharply since 1992. In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC, 2000a) reported that teenage daily smoking increased 73 percent between 1988 and 1996. Coincidentally (or not), 1988 was the first full year, and 1996 the last, that R. J. Reynolds featured the "Joe Camel" cartoon-advertisement campaign (which had considerable appeal among children). The increase in adolescent smoking in the 1990s has been attributed to a variety of factors, including the targeting of youths by tobacco companies, teen emulation of media celebrities, and the ineffective health-based antismoking efforts of the 1980s and 1990s.

In light of the upsurge in teen smoking in the 1990s and the highly addictive nature of tobacco, smoking prevention is considered to be particularly important. The 1994 U.S. Surgeon General's report, "Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People," estimated that more than three thousand adolescents begin smoking each day, with 12.5 years being the average age of smoking initiation. The report urged that, for preventative efforts to be successful, they must reach adolescents at or before the transition from elementary to secondary school. It is at this age that youths are most vulnerable to the positive images of smokers depicted in movies and in cigarette advertisements.

Research demonstrates that cigarette advertising is an important contributor to adolescent smoking. Nicola Evans and her colleagues (1995) found that exposure of youths to tobacco advertising was more predictive of smoking than being exposed to family and friends who smoked. Indeed, evidence suggests that adolescents are uniquely susceptible to cigarette advertisements. During the period when Camel, Marlboro, and Newport were the three most heavily advertised cigarette brands, the three brands captured 86 percent of the adolescent smoking market but only 35 percent of the adult market. Cornelia Pech-mann and Irvine S. Ratneshwar (1994) reported that more youths than adults recognized that Joe Camel promoted cigarettes.

Since it was barred in 1971 from using broadcast advertisements, the tobacco industry depends exclusively on magazine advertisements to associate cigarettes with images of independence, adventure, and youthfulness. According to Simmons Market Research Bureau (1990), tobacco advertisements typically appear in magazines read by teenagers, such as Sports Illustrated and Glamour (twelve-to nineteen-year-olds make up 33 percent and 28 percent, respectively, of the readership of these magazines). The research described above suggests that cigarette advertisements significantly influence children's decisions to take up smoking. The Surgeon General's 1994 report argued that these advertisements work by influencing the perceptions that youths have of the images associated with smoking. According to research by Dee Burton and her colleagues (1989), the images that adolescents link to smoking, such as sophistication and independence, are similar to the images that are portrayed in cigarette advertising.

Critics have claimed that tobacco companies target youths in order to replace dying smokers with new customers. This accusation, in part, motivated the tobacco master settlement agreement (MSA) between a coalition of attorneys general in forty-six states and the tobacco industry. The MSA of 1996, among other things, banned the tobacco industry from targeting eleven-to seventeen-year-olds with cartoon characters, brand-name merchandise, free samples, and event sponsorship. The agreement also eliminated outdoor and transit advertising and paid product placement on television and in motion pictures. The intent was to reduce the exposure of adolescents to cigarette promotions.

Nonetheless, cigarettes are being promoted by new means. The incidence of smoking in movies that are popular with teenagers is on the rise, and the American Lung Association (1999) partially blames exposure to celebrity smokers for increased adolescent smoking. The association reviewed the fifty movies that had the top box-office sales in 1997 and found that 88 percent of the movies featured tobacco use and 74 percent showed the lead actors smoking. Furthermore, study sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (Roberts, Henriksen, and Christenson, 1999) found that tobacco was used in 79 percent of G-or PG-rated movies, with adverse consequences infrequently portrayed. In fact, Stanton Glantz (1997) claims that lead movie characters are three times more likely than the adult population to smoke. Similarly, Anna Hazan and her colleagues (1994) compared the incidence of smoking among high socioeconomic status movie characters and real people. They found that, whereas 57 percent of the movie characters smoke, only 19 percent of similarly situated real people smoke.

The prevalence of smoking in movies is considered problematic because, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (1999), 49 percent of twelve-to seventeen-year-olds are frequent moviegoers, and actors are often role models for adolescents. The use of tobacco by celebrities may encourage youths to smoke because youths often emulate the behavior of people they admire.

In recognition of the increased amount of smoking by youths, state health departments and consumer groups have devised methods to combat the effects of media exposure to smoking. For example, in 1998, Vice-President Al Gore unveiled the first nationwide advertising campaign since the 1960s to target adolescent smoking. The campaign, sponsored by the American Legacy Foundation, featured nine television advertisements involving celebrities, such as the musical group Boys II Men. These advertisements were designed to be hip, humorous, and fashionable. They focused on the adverse social effects, rather than the health effects, of smoking. The basis of these and other antismoking advertisements is that teenagers are more concerned with immediate, as opposed to intermediate or long-term, consequences of smoking.

Some states have been highly successful in decreasing the amount of smoking by adolescents. For example, in 1998, Florida launched a $44 million, youth-designed campaign that mocks tobacco advertisements and accuses tobacco companies of manipulation. Partly as a result of this campaign, Florida has seen a 54 percent reduction in smoking by middle-school students. Massachusetts, California, and Oregon also have initiated aggressive campaigns for smoking prevention.

Another smoking prevention tool is the Internet. Smoke Screeners have created a media literacy website that is designed to deglamorize smoking in the movies, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have created an online source for information related to kids, teens, and smoking. Teenagers have also taken the initiative by forming the organization Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT), which has a website dedicated to getting "the whole truth" to other teenagers.

An impressive amount of research suggests that smoking prevention interventions can assist in curbing the onset of smoking. In particular, school-based programs that teach social influence resistance skills have been related to significant smoking reductions among adolescents. Also, programs that focus on the development of self-image through means other than smoking, and on media literacy and normative expectations regarding smoking, have also proven beneficial. For example, the Life Skills Program, developed by the CDC (2000b), achieved a 44 percent reduction in smoking onset six years following the program. Additionally, Project Toward No Tobacco Use (otherwise known as Project TNT), which was also developed by the CDC (2000c), reduced smoking initiation among middle-school students by 26 percent over a two-year period. Finally, inoculation, a resistance tactic intended to make youths aware of the vulnerability of their anti-smoking attitudes, has been employed successfully by Michael Pfau and his colleagues (1994) to reduce the risk of smoking onset among adolescents who are in transition from elementary to secondary school.

Pechmann (1997), who offers advice for the design of antismoking messages, stresses the importance of showing the negative social, monetary, and physical appearance consequences of smoking. Pechmann also suggests placing advertisements on network television, on cable television channels that show rock videos, and on contemporary rock radio stations. While exposure to smoking in movies and in advertising can be influential for youths, so too can exposure to anti-smoking advertisements. For example, with regard to the influence of movie characters who smoke, Pechmann and Chuan-Fong Shih (1999) found that exposure to an antismoking advertisement before a movie encouraged youths to formulate negative thoughts about the subsequent movie characters who smoked.

See also:Advertising Effects; Alcohol Abuse and College Students; Alcohol in the Media; Social Change and the Media.

Bibliography

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Michael Pfau

Erin Alison Szabo