Propaganda campaigns are prevalently utilized in politics, media advertisements, revolution campaigns, and activism to persuade the audience to believe in and conform to their doctrines. One significant example of an active propaganda campaign in this century entails “The Stop Smoking Movement.” The paper discusses the ideology, objective, characteristics, context, special techniques, organization culture, target audience, media strategies, audience reaction, counter-propaganda and the effectiveness of the “Stop Smoking” Movement.
“The Stop Smoking” campaign is a prevalent example of a propaganda campaign that demonizes cigarette smoking but fails to account for the rising vaping cases among the youth. In particular, the antismoking campaigns aim to propagate behavioral change in active smokers by conveying the detrimental impacts of cigarette smoking through various media ads. In particular, the antismoking ads are geared towards inhibiting the smoking initiation among the young populations, shielding smoking commencement in the older generations, halting progression to addictive smoking, and motivating smoking cessation among the young adults (Brennan et al., 2017). Besides, numerous antismoking campaigns strive to emancipate the audience to evade smoking habits perceived as healthy because they lack tobacco, for instance, e-cigarette smoking (Ethan, 2020). The “Stop Smoking” movement therefore aims to curb both tobacco smoking and electronic cigarette use by young people.
The current antismoking campaigns assume the social, economic, health, and historical contexts. The economic ideology of antismoking campaigns establishes that avoiding or quitting smoking can enable one to save the money utilized in purchasing cigarettes as well as the hospital bills incurred when attending to smoking-related health complications (Brennan et l., 2017). Additionally, the social context of the antismoking campaigns aims to emancipate the public that smoking affects one’s social life, self-esteem, communication, productivity, self-respect, and marriages (Brennan et al., 2017). In particular, some cigarette ads portray images of active cigarette smokers as outliers and despised by the rest of society. The historical context of antismoking propaganda campaigns can be traced back to 1961 when the American Cancer Society initiated the initial campaign (Mendes, 2014). Furthermore, E-cigarettes were initially developed by Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist, in 2003 to reduce tobacco smoking, particularly among the youths (Ethan, 2020). In particular, the antismoking campaigns have been hijacked by proponents that champion e-cigarettes as essential in facilitating smoking cessation among active smokers.
The “Stop Smoking” movement applies special persuasive techniques in its quest to suppress cigarette smoking among youths and adults. For instance, the antismoking initiatives use personalized images in depicting physical body areas affected by prolonged cigarette smoking, the lungs and limbs to warn smokers Additionally, the antismoking messages strive to persuade the audience of the economic benefits of avoiding cigarette smoking, for instance, saving unnecessary daily purchases and suppressing medical costs (Brennan et al., 2017). At the same time, the antismoking ads oppose detrimental alternative strategies of ceasing smoking, for instance, using nicotine patches, and vaping. Furthermore, in an attempt to curb cigarette smoking, the “Stop Smoking” campaign counters messages concerning healthy smoking and lucrative vaping flavors to be experienced by youth.
The “Stop Smoking” movement encompasses a centralized organization whose campaigns are spearheaded by the American Cancer Society. Moreover, the American Cancer Society forefronts various campaigns to curb the smoking rates among active smokers. Furthermore, the American Cancer Society partners with various local and international funding companies to oversee awareness campaigns to curb smoking at local and international levels (Mendes, 2014). Additionally, the “Stop Smoking” movement spearheaded by the American Cancer Society possesses the culture of safeguarding the populations from the detrimental health impacts of cigarette smoking.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is the propagandist of the “Stop Smoking Movement”, and it has a distinct target market. The ACS passes its campaign messages through print, mass, and social media platforms. The propagandist aims to educate the audience on the potential harms that cigarette smoking can impose on their health. Additionally, the propagandist focuses on persuading non-smokers to avoid first-time smoking and active smokers to cease their smoking habits. Furthermore, the target audience of the “Stop Smoking” includes active tobacco smokers and e-cigarette smokers. The campaign focuses on active cigarette smokers, majorly Gen X and the Baby Boomer, Gen Z and the Millennials, who mainly engage in e-cigarette smoking, and non-smokers.
The antismoking propaganda campaigns utilize various social media, mass media, and print media channels to pass their message to the audience. In the present decade, antismoking advertisements are conveyed via various avenues such as television, radio, warning messages on tobacco packets, and via internet sites and social media pages. Besides, the “Stop Smoking” movement tailors specific antismoking messages through various social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. The media messages are designed to include visual and text descriptions of the side effects of cigarette smoking and the potential mitigation strategies.
The antismoking propaganda campaign is characterized by fear appeals, images of the detrimental health impacts of cigarette smoking, and the emotional appeal illustrating the health gains of avoiding smoking. Additionally, the antismoking campaign utilizes vital rhetorical principles. The propaganda campaign utilizes logos to appeal to logic to its supporters by highlighting that even though cigarettes are legal, smoking remains harmful to their health; hence it is necessary to quit (Reis & Postolache, 2019). Besides, the pathos entailing emotional appeal is evident in the propaganda campaign and is represented by accompanying images of damaged lungs and sick smokers that the audience can identify with (Reis & Postolache, 2019). Furthermore, the logos, entailing the logic, is used in elaborating the harmful impacts of smoking through actual data on casualties and deaths resulting from smoking, images of affected smokers versus healthy people, and detriments of alternative measures such as vaping.
Audience reaction to the “Stop Smoking” movement has been positive for tobacco smokers but negative for e-cigarette smokers, particularly due to the introduction of fear appeals that inform the smokers of the detrimental health impacts of smoking. For instance, since the initial report on health and smoking by Surgeon General in 1964, the cigarette smoking rates among adults in the United States have drastically reduced from approximately 43% to 14% in 2018 (Kim et al., 2020). Much of the shift from conventional cigarette smoking can be attributed to the heightened visualization and manifestation of the detrimental health impacts of cigarette smoking in various mass, print, and social media sites. Whereas tobacco smoking has immensely reduced, the rates of smoking e-cigarettes continue to rise in the United States. For instance, in the United States, approximately 3.6 million high and middle school students utilized e-cigarettes in 2020 within 30 days (Kim et al., 2020). Furthermore, among the adult populations, approximately 56% of persons aged between 18 and 24 and who have never smoked tobacco smoke e-cigarettes (Kim et al., 2020). The increasing shift from tobacco smoking to vaping can be attributed to the increasing appeal of e-cigarettes to the youths
The counter-propaganda against the “Stop Smoking” movement entails the propaganda peddled by cigarette-producing companies on the perceived benefits of their products. For instance, the tobacco industry has a long history of media control, where they strive to construct a positive image in the market. Since tobacco smoking is not illegal, most tobacco manufacturing companies resort to support from the First Amendment. In this regard, the counter-propaganda involves support for cigarette smoking due to its legal nature and the leisure it offers the active smokers.
Additionally, the counter-propaganda that supports e-cigarette smoking entails the perception that it is safer and less harmful to health than conventional tobacco. For instance, numerous companies have developed e-cigarette products such as tank systems, vapes, vape pens, mods, and e-hookas (Ethan, 2020). These products are meant to aid active smokers in quitting tobacco smoking and resorting to vaping. Whereas the government heavily regulates tobacco-related advertisements, e-cigarettes can be freely advertised by e-cigarette companies. Against this backdrop, e-cigarette advertisers promote their products as having fewer chemicals than tobacco.
The “Stop Smoking” campaign has been partly effective in curbing the comprehensive tobacco smoking rates in active smokers. Whereas the number of tobacco smokers has considerably depreciated following the inception of the stop smoking campaigns, the number of e-cigarette smokers has considerably increased (Belluz, 2019). The reduction in the number of tobacco smokers can primarily be attributed to the fear appeal induced by the warning messages and pictorial illustrations of the cigarettes in ads that emancipate the audience on the harmful health impacts of smoking. Consequently, the audience gets discouraged from active tobacco smoking in a bid to safeguard their health.
Conversely, “Stop Smoking” has not succeeded in curbing the rising e-cigarette smoking rates among the youth. Whereas vaping was taught in the United States to suppress cigarette smoking, it has triggered a vaping pandemic among the youth and teens. For instance, in 2019, approximately 28% of high school students reported having used nicotine vapes (Belluz, 2019). Additionally, in 2019, the rate of vaping in middle schoolers escalated from 5% to 11 % (Belluz, 2019). The swelling numbers of teens utilizing vapes in the US can be attributed to the high exposure to Juul-based nicotine products (Belluz, 2019). Besides, many fruit-flavored, mint-flavored, or methanol-flavored e-cigarettes have increased the number of persons who actively vape.
Overall, the “Stop Smoking” campaign has been partly successful in suppressing smoking rates in the US population. In particular, the movement has drastically reduced tobacco smoking rates but has failed to combat the rising e-cigarette smoking patterns. Furthermore, the propaganda campaign is unethical in using the fear appeal to discourage active smokers from consuming tobacco (Reis & Postolache, 2019). For instance, tobacco and cigarette smoking is a legal business, and campaigning against it goes against the provisions of the right to free business enshrined in the First Amendment in the US constitution. Moreover, the US’s tobacco manufacturing companies engage in the legal business, hence they do not deserve their efforts in achieving profitability to be watered down by the “Stop Smoking” movement.
References
Belluz, J. (2019). Survey: The epidemic of teen vaping continues to surge, unabated. Vox. Web.
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Ethan (2020). When did vaping start? Vaporesso. Web.
Kim, M., Olson, S., Jordan, J. W., & Ling, P. M. (2020). Peer crowd-based targeting in E-cigarette advertisements: A qualitative study to inform counter-marketing. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1-12. Web.
Mendes, E. (2014). The study that helped spur the U.S. Stop-Smoking movement. American Cancer Society. Web.
Reis, E. S., & Postolache, O. A. (2019). Fear or humour in antismoking campaigns? Impact on perceived effectiveness and support for tobacco control policies. Ciencia & Saude Coletiva, 24(12), 4727-4738. Web.