Rethinking anti-smoking media campaigns: two generations of research and issues for the next

Abstract

This article provides a variety of alternative theoretical issues and new research directions for smoking media campaign research. The first two generations of smoking media campaign research are reviewed and new ideas about public resistance and resolving complex issues are explored. The authors critique the limits of current campaign theory and their premise that how the public resolves issues such as smoking cessation needs to be seen in a broader context. The consciousness raising, working through, and resolution stages each present a series of different research challenges and issues for investigators. These are: (1) an assessment of the perceived credibility by the target audience toward mass media, news media, health care providers, tobacco firms, area health care agencies, the health care delivery system, and different classes of providers, (2) how smokers and nonsmokers differ on the linkage among biomedical, epidemiological, and toxicological controversies, (3) how smoking issues are managed within arenas, (4) how arenas potentially undermine popular participation in public policy formation, and (5) how in the creation of dialogue there should be dual emphases on the viability of the concept and tactics.