Print Media Banning Cigarettes

This paper will examine the history of the tobacco industry and its advertising campaigns from the 1920s to the present. Some of the issues discussed in this paper will include: What forms of mass communication has tobacco companies used to persuade the public, how changes in technology have influenced the way tobacco companies communicate with target audiences, and how the United States government restrictions affect the current efforts of tobacco companies advertising strategies. Other topics that this paper will expound upon are, the ethics of the tobacco industry’s advertising approaches, how tobacco companies responded to health warnings from the government, and what

Although tobacco advertisements are banned, people still consume it. The ban started in 1971 and since then has become even more strict on the sponsoring and promotion of tobacco brand logos. Now, all tobacco ads used, dissuade users from consuming. Advertisements in general can be obnoxious and tiresome, but they are sometimes necessary for the seller to get their point across. Ads are either trying to get money from the consumer or driving to change a person’s mind positively. The main reasoning for the creation of advertisements is to persuade the viewer or audience through the evocation of ethos, pathos, and logos, to have a change of mind about the product. The ads I chose are both similar, but have different goals towards their audience.

Tobacco consumption is the number one cause of preventable deaths in the United States. In the United States, cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year. That is around one in five deaths annually only because of smoking. On an average, the person who smokes dies ten years earlier than a non-smoker. These statistics are not mere numbers but speak about the gravity of the situation. The United States government should portray a more negative view on Tabaco to save the lives of many people worldwide (Centre for Disease and Prevention, second paragraph).

Many drugs are used, misused, and abused in American society today. Some of these carry stigma in the general population, forcing users into an underground drug subculture. Others are accepted and almost promoted under certain circumstances. Tobacco is one of those drugs. Tobacco will be discussed in the context of cigarette smoking. This is not to undermine the existence or danger of other forms of tobacco, but instead to have an exhaustive discussion of cigarette smoking and its societal impact. Cigarettes are a means of inhaling tobacco, where it enters the lungs and is absorbed through the blood vessels, traveling to the heart, from which it is finally pumped to the brain (Hogan, Gabrielsen, Luna, and Grothaus 2003:76). Cigarettes are detrimental to society because they not only affect the user who chooses to smoke; they impact people around them through second-hand and residual smoke. The damage done by cigarettes is not impossible to address. Successful prevention measures are already in place, but this paper intends to suggest other more direct measures, especially related to statutory regulations.

After finding out the effects of propaganda on the populous big tobacco companies spared no time before launching their own waves of propaganda promoting their cigarettes. As stated by Stanford School of Medicine, as early as the 1930s companies had already begun to release posters of venerated American heroes such as doctors, soldiers, even at one point presidents in order to reintroduce the trend of smoking as a cool trait the public could share with celebrities and heroes (Stanford

Cigarettes have often been viewed as a horrible product that can cause many health problems such as cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. The act of advertising smoking in a positive manner on TV is illegal in today’s society. We have learned the true effect of how smoking affects your body, yet with all these known facts about smoking many people still choose to smoke. Smoking has not always been portrayed as a negative act. Around the early to late 1950’s there were many ads that showed only positive things about smoking. The two ads shown below portray the message that if you smoke you will be happy and with so many people smoking during the 1950’s it was hard not to see how smoking wouldn’t cause positive emotions; furthermore, with the convenient packaging it was easy to have a smoke almost everywhere you went. These two cigarette companies produced ads that proclaimed to have cigarettes that were good for your throat. With people not knowing the harsh effects of smoking as we do now, they

In the United States today, more than forty six million Americans are addicted to cigarettes. More people have died due to cigarette smoking than from narcotic drugs, World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War combined (Bailey 1). The annual death toll for cigarette smoking is more than four-hundred thousand Americans a year, and is the number-one preventable cause of death in the United States. If Americans are aware of the lethal effects of smoking, why is it still so popular? Guy Smith, a Phillip Morris Tobacco Company executive, claims that their research shows that advertising is the top reason people start smoking (Bailey 34). Most people will argue that this is not true because the do not like to be “sold” and

Just over a billion people worldwide indulge themselves with a legal substance that has proven too insidiously cause disease or death. Approximately six million people die each year from this legal drug and it is one of the worst threats to humanity worldwide (WHO, 2016). This drug is sold legally over the counter throughout many countries including the United States. The Surgeon General’s Warning, “smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy” was labeled on the packaging of cigarette boxes in the 1980’s. Eventually, launching a national campaign for smoking cessation. Despite the many laws that inhibit the use of tobacco smoke, these products continue to be a legally obtainable substance in the US with devastating damage as a result of their use.

The negative health effects of tobacco use have been well established. Tobacco use has been shown to cause acute and chronic respiratory disease, heart disease, many types of cancer, and is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the United States, causing an estimated 443,000 deaths per year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2004). As the dangers of smoking have become better understood, reducing the number of people who smoke has become a major focus for those interested in public health. Efforts to restrict the advertisement and sale of tobacco, implement public smoking bans, and educate citizens through public service announcements have all had a sizeable effect on smoking rates in the U.S. In Fact, over

Tobacco products are ever so threatening in the United States, where according to U.S. Food and Drug administration 25% of the deaths in men and women age 35 to 69 are caused from smoking related diseases (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2017). This number was even higher among substance abusers and people with mental health problems (Bandiera, Anteneh, Le, Delucchi, & Guydish, 2015, p.1). Even if someone does not die from smoking cigarettes they are at increased risk of contracting an otherwise preventable disease. Due to an exponentially growing amount of people becoming affected with diseases related to tobacco use, the United States government were forced to take action to try and stop the progression of these horrible diseases. These actions have come to no avail, since people who are addicted to cigarettes are not going to stop buying them just because of a price increase. Banning the production and distribution of tobacco products will contribute to a

One of my favorite pastimes is smoking. Smoking, for me is a great stress reliever; it helps take the edge off. It can’t be denied however, smoking is still bad for you. The damage it does to the body is well documented and researched. There have been two warring sides of the media, the pro- tobacco side and the anti- tobacco side. ‘Big Tobacco’ as well as anti-smoking activist bombard the public with images to promote their agenda. This essay I will be comparing and contrasting ads from both pro and anti-smoking industries. Although, the ads have different goals the way they go about achieving them are similar. The pro smoking ad makes smoking seem more glamorous than it really is. The anti-smoking commercial makes smoking seem sinister and ominous.

The extent to which tobacco advertising contributes to the increase in smoking habits has been debated and still is being debated. The focus is heavily on the degree to which the advertising affects adolescents. Previous research which is explored above, suggests significant relationships between smoking behavior among youth and these advertisements. Tobacco companies on the other hand, have tried to prove their ads are not directed towards our youth. Specifically, the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company has run full page ads in national magazines advising youth to not smoke. They have asserted

For many years, cigarettes manufacturers had used deceitful and untrue adverts about smoking. Rather than highlight the dangers associated with this practice, they presented smoking as fun, a sigh of maturity, rebelliousness, and even independence. These ads were aimed at

The use of tobacco is a very controversial topic here in the United States. The harmful side effects of tobacco are well known and consequently, many believe that it should be outlawed. Though this has not yet occurred, constant regulations on the industry and

Advertisements involving smoking should be prohibited. Kids and teens that are the most impressionable and easily influenced. Cigarette promotions make smoking appear harmless and cool and have led to many kids under the age of 18 to have smoked for years. The advertisements on quitting smoking and how bad they are for you may be effective for older viewers however many teens and kids are drawn to cigarettes even more because adults are saying it is bad for you and it appeals to their “bad boy/girl” ideal. Many might argue that forbidding a company from advertising its product is against freedom of speech. This essay will show that the harmful effects of cigarettes will justify dramatic means to prevent people especially our youth from being encouraged to start smoking.