Local-Community Interests and South Carolinian Newspapers' Coverage of Smoke-Free Policies.

In this quantitative content analysis, we assess how smoke-free policies are presented in South Carolinian newspapers. In particular, this study examines the extent to which newspapers' coverage of smoke free-policies has represented the interests of their local communities. We compare newspapers in the communities whose economy relies heavily on the tourism and hospitality industry (The Post & Courier in Charleston and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach) and newspapers elsewhere (The State in Columbia and The Greenville News in Greenville), and see whether there are meaningful differences between the newspapers in the way they portray smoke-free policies, particularly in terms of their selective uses of news sources and key arguments. Our findings indicate that South Carolinian newspapers portrayed smoke-free policies largely as a political issue. Many political reasons to either support or oppose the policies were found in almost two out of three articles. We also found that The Post & Courier and The Sun News were more likely than The State and The Greenville News to make arguments against smoke-free policies, and this was particularly so when they were talking about economic impacts of the policies. Public health and media advocacy implications are discussed in detail.

Media coverage of smoke-free policies after their innovation.

Smoke-free policies are critical to global tobacco control, and prior research on media coverage of smoke-free policies primarily focused on the period when they were first innovated; however, the scientific basis for smoke-free policies has broadened, and how media coverage has changed, if at all, is unknown. The authors characterized the actors, arguments, and favorability of media coverage of smoke-free policies from 2006 to 2009, by content-analyzing 452 news stories in the 4 primary newspapers in South Carolina. Most media coverage was favorable (45%) or mixed (43%) toward smoke-free policies, and negative coverage decreased over time (B = -1.001, SE = 0.326; p = .008). The most prevalent argument concerned the harms of secondhand smoke (44%). A higher percentage of articles mentioned economic arguments against (26%) than for (17%) smoke-free policies (χ(2) = 10.89, p < .01, for the difference between 26% and 17%), and these percentages did not change over time. Advocates and media should improve communications to more effectively represent scientific evidence regarding the null or positive impact of smoke-free policies on businesses.

Print media coverage around failed and successful tobacco tax initiatives: the South Carolina experience.

PURPOSE: Taxes are a critical tobacco control policy, yet little systematic research has determined how mass media represent tobacco taxes. This study aimed to characterize print media coverage of tobacco tax initiatives in South Carolina (SC). DESIGN: Content analysis. SETTING: The setting comprised 346 news articles from 2006 to 2010 in the four main SC newspapers. SUBJECTS: N/A . MEASURES: A coding scheme with good inter-rater reliability (α = .90-1.0) assessed article type (news vs. opinion), arguments, and the story tendency regarding whether it was in favor of the tax, against the tax, or neutral/mixed. ANALYSIS: Chi-square tests and t-tests assessed hypotheses regarding the prevalence and number of different arguments and article tendencies across different time periods (i.e., legislature in session vs. not in session; successful vs. unsuccessful initiative) and article types. RESULTS: Most articles were favorable toward the tax (59%), with favorable articles most likely to be found in opinion pieces than in news articles. Compared to unsuccessful tax initiative years (2006 to 2009), articles from the successful year (2010) were more likely to include pro-tax arguments about how the tax can raise state revenues (47% vs. 33%; p = .020) and pay for tobacco control programs (40% vs. 26%; p = .014). Unsuccessful years included a relatively higher percentage of stories about the lack of consensus regarding how the tax money should be spent (25% vs. 11%; p = .014). Within articles, the mean number of arguments favorable toward the tax and the mean number of economic arguments were marginally higher in the successful year compared to the unsuccessful years. CONCLUSION: Study results suggest that advocates build consensus and communicate more clearly on how tobacco tax revenue streams should be spent.