Objective: To assess the extent and nature of newspaper coverage of tobacco related issues in Australia in 2001. Design: Content analysis of newspaper articles. Subjects: All articles (n=1188) at least seven lines long and containing at least one paragraph focused on tobacco in all major Australian national and State capital city newspapers (n=12) in 2001. Main outcome measures: Number of articles, month of publication, State in which newspaper published, prominence of article, type of article, article theme, and slant of article relative to tobacco control objectives. Results: The number of tobacco articles varied considerably in different months over the course of the year, from a low of 51 in December to a peak of 180 in May. The most frequent theme was secondhand smoke issues (30% of articles), with the second most dominant theme related to education, prevention, and cessation programmes and services (20%). Events that were covered were predominantly positive for tobacco control: 62% of articles were related to events that were positive, compared with 21% that were negative for tobacco control objectives. Excluding news articles, the opinions expressed by the authors of articles were also mainly positive (61%) rather than negative (22%) for tobacco control objectives. The amount of coverage of and population exposure to tobacco focused articles showed considerable variation across different Australian States, with Victoria having the highest frequency and rate of articles and the most media impressions per capita throughout 2001. Conclusions: Coverage of events and opinions related to tobacco in Australian newspapers in 2001 was generally positive for tobacco control objectives. Given that over 2 million individuals (out of a population of 19 million) were potentially exposed to tobacco related newspaper articles per day in Australia, this represents good news for tobacco control advocates. The variation in news coverage in different States and at different times in the year, however, illustrates how a combination of local events and advocacy efforts may at times combine to make tobacco more newsworthy. Understanding which tobacco issues are most likely to be covered and the nature of the coverage about them provides valuable feedback for tobacco control advocates and is a useful gauge of actual events as well as the tobacco related agendas promoted by the press.

Objective: To compare the similarity in how youth in the United States, Australia, and Britain appraise anti-smoking advertisements with different characteristics. Design: Each participant viewed and evaluated a set of 10 anti-smoking adverts (from an overall total of 50 adverts) in a controlled experimental context using an audience response methodology. A structured telephone interview was completed one week after viewing the adverts, in which recall and engagement with the adverts by participants was evaluated. Subjects: 615 youths who were experimenting with smoking or were susceptible nonsmokers. Main outcome measures: Measures of advert appraisal and engagement. Results: Youth in the United States, Australia, and Britain responded in very similar ways to the same anti-smoking advertisements. In full multivariate models, the target audience of the advert and the advert theme were not related to the main outcome measures employed in this study. However, adverts with visceral negative or personal testimonial executional characteristics were appraised more positively by youths and were more likely to be recalled, thought about, and discussed at follow up one week later. Conclusions: Youths in three different countries responded to anti-smoking advertisements in very similar ways, suggesting that such adverts might be more actively shared among nations. The appraisal of, and engagement with, the anti-smoking adverts, however, varied substantially depending on executional characteristics. In the design of effective anti-smoking adverts, due attention needs to be paid to those characteristics that appear to most engage youth across different social and cultural environments.

Tobacco control advocates now recognize the value of influencing news coverage of tobacco; news coverage influences attitudes and behavior as well as policy progression. It is, however, difficult to assess the progress of such efforts within a single national and temporal context. Our data represent the first systematic international comparison of press coverage of tobacco issues. Tobacco articles from major daily newspapers in Australia (12 newspapers; 1,188 articles) and the United States (30 newspapers; 1,317 articles) were collected over 1 year (2001). The analysis shows that coverage in the two countries was similarly apportioned between hard news (>70%) and opinion pieces. Similarly, stories in both countries were most likely to recount positive events. The substantive focus of coverage, however, differed, as did the expression of hostile opinion toward tobacco control efforts (United States, 4%; Australia, 7.1%). Although secondhand smoke and education, cessation, and prevention efforts were covered widely in both settings, these topics dominated coverage in Australia (29.2%) more than in the United States (17.6%), where a more diffuse set of tobacco topics gained relative prominence. The difference in policy conditions seems to offer contrasting opportunities for advocates in the two countries to use newspapers to promote helpful tobacco control messages for both behavior and policy change.

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