African media coverage of tobacco industry corporate social responsibility initiatives
Open accessAbstract
Guidelines for implementing the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommend prohibiting tobacco industry corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, but few African countries have done so. We examined African media coverage of tobacco industry CSR initiatives to understand whether and how such initiatives were presented to the public and policymakers. We searched two online media databases (Lexis Nexis and Access World News) for all news items published from 1998 to 2013, coding retrieved items through a collaborative, iterative process. We analysed the volume, type, provenance, slant and content of coverage, including the presence of tobacco control or tobacco interest themes. We found 288 news items; most were news stories published in print newspapers. The majority of news stories relied solely on tobacco industry representatives as news sources, and portrayed tobacco industry CSR positively. When public health voices and tobacco control themes were included, news items were less likely to have a positive slant. This suggests that there is a foundation on which to build media advocacy efforts. Drawing links between implementing the FCTC and prohibiting or curtailing tobacco industry CSR programmes may result in more public dialogue in the media about the negative impacts of tobacco company CSR initiatives.
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The tobacco industry uses CSR for image laundering, to gain political capital and to stymie regulatory processes.
“The tobacco industry uses CSR for image laundering, to gain political capital and to stymie regulatory processes.41–43”
From Role of stakeholders in Nigeria’s tobacco control journey after the FCTC: lessons for tobacco control advocacy in low-income and middle-income countries (2019) · cites this paper as [43]
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Exposing and addressing tobacco industry conduct in low-income and middle-income countries
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Egbe, C. O., Bialous, S. A., & Glantz, S. (2019) · Tobacco Control · doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054344 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
- Authors
- McDaniel, P. A., Cadman, B., & Malone, R. E.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Corresponding author
- McDaniel, Patricia A.
- Venue
- Global Public Health
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2016-03-07
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 129-143
- ISSN
- 1744-1692 (ISSN-L)
- 1744-1706
- PMC
- PMC5014722
- OpenAlex
- W2297435795
- Cited by
- 15
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 3.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Global Public Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Cancer Institute (R01 CA120138)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Keywords
- media coverage, African media, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, tobacco control, news framing, news sources, media advocacy, public health communication, tobacco industry
- MeSH terms
- Africa, Humans, Mass Media, Public Health, Social Responsibility, World Health Organization, Guidelines as Topic, Tobacco Industry, Guideline Adherence, Tobacco Use
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