Making news: the appearance of tobacco control organizations in newspaper coverage of tobacco control issues.
OBJECTIVE
To characterize the presence of advocacy groups in media coverage about tobacco issues.


METHODS
A content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles.


METHODS
Australia.


METHODS
All 12 national and state capital daily newspapers published in Australia between 2004 and 2007.


METHODS
We coded each article for explicit mentions of any of 16 major national or state tobacco control advocacy groups; for the article type, prominence, and topic; for the tone of the event; and for the author's opinion.


METHODS
A series of 2 × 2 χ(2) analyses assessed the extent to which advocacy groups were more or less likely to be mentioned in articles of each type, prominence, topic, event impact, and opinion orientation.


RESULTS
Of the 4387 tobacco-related articles published over this period, 22% mentioned an advocacy group. There was a greater-than-expected proportion of advocacy groups mentioned in news articles with very high prominence (44%; χ(2) [1, N = 3118] = 27.4, p < .001), high prominence (34%; χ(2) [1, N = 3118] = 10.9, p < .001), and medium prominence (30%; χ(2) [1, N = 3118] = 7.3, p = .007), and in articles covering events with mixed (30%; χ(2) [1, N = 4387] = 10.0, p = .002) or positive (24%; χ(2) [1, N = 4387] = 26.1, p < .001) implications for tobacco control.


CONCLUSIONS
Australian tobacco control advocacy groups have a reasonable presence within the news discourse on tobacco control issues and so are likely to contribute to generating and shaping this discourse, particularly in relation to evolving and controversial issues.
Cancer Council Victoria, 1 Rathdowne Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia. Melanie.wakefield@cancervic.org.au
Melanie A
MA
Wakefield
Emily
E
Brennan
Sarah J
SJ
Durkin
Kim
K
McLeod
Katherine C
KC
Smith
D001315:Australia; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003254:Consumer Advocacy; D006266:Health Education; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006291:Health Policy; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods; D009524:Newspapers as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011634:Public Health / Q000379:methods; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D040241:Social Marketing; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000517:prevention & control*