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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Priscilla Murphy, PhD and Maria de Fatima Oliveira, MS. Strategic and Organizational Communication, Temple University, Weiss Hall 216 -Temple University, 1701 North 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, 215-204-8345, murphyp@temple.edu

Tobacco products marketing is a vital public health issue. Tobacco companies skillfully adapt their marketing appeals in response to public and legislative concerns. Therefore it is important to go behind the scenes into tobacco industry internal documents, to understand how their marketing strategy evolved and where we can expect it to go in the future. This abstract reports how the major U.S. tobacco companies framed the concept of “choice” over a 10-year period that includes the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. We analyzed thousands of pages of tobacco industry internal documents, using innovative computer-assisted techniques to highlight frames relevant to the “choice” issue—both a code word for addiction and an appeal to American consumers' values. Most research on tobacco industry internal documents is audience-focused. Our study is industry-focused—it exposes what the tobacco companies view as their own vulnerabilities, often reflecting the impact of opposing groups' efforts. This study identifies issues that gave most concern to the tobacco companies during the 1990s. Using internal documents, it answers the following questions: What self-presentation (issues framing) strategies did the companies associate with key constituencies? How did the framing strategies of the tobacco companies change over time? How unified was the industry's framing strategy? By understanding the tobacco companies' vulnerabilities and strategies to manage them, we can better formulate offsetting messages to smokers, helping them understand how the industry manipulates public opinion.

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