The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #71209

Lori Dorfman, DrPH, Berkeley Media Studies Group, 2140 Shattuck Ave. Suite 804, Berkeley, CA 94704, 510-204-9700, dorfman@bmsg.org, Phillip M. Wilbur, MA, Office of Public Advocacy, American Heart Association, 1150 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036, and Lawrence M. Wallack, DrPH, School of Community Health, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207-0751.

Tobacco companies have worked long and hard to make their sponsorship of sporting and community events appear normal and natural. Consequently, media advocates face a huge task: unmasking the relationship for the unnatural, harmful, and insidious arrangement that it is. For events like rodeo, at the heart of rural communities’ identity, eliminating tobacco company sponsorship presents complex communication and community organizing challenges. We developed a media advocacy guide to provide a strategic framework to meet this challenge. Media advocacy is part of a long-term strategy that combines careful policy analysis, message development, framing, community mobilization, and advocacy with other resources to bring community-based pressure to bear on forces undermining our health, in this case, a formidable foe, the tobacco industry. To develop the plan, we reviewed the sponsorship and media advocacy literature; convened experts in tobacco control, media advocacy, and rodeo; challenged those experts with difficult questions; and synthesized the material to create a media advocacy plan for rural California communities, including a history of tobacco sponsorship explaining the industry’s motives for sponsoring rodeos, overall strategy, and reinvigorated arguments for reframing rodeo sponsorship. This session will describe how to reframe rodeo in the tradition of tobacco control, the key proactive and reactive messages for eliminating sponsorship at rodeos, how to focus messages on the industry rather than local community members, and why the health frame can undermine advocates’ goals in this context. Lessons will be applied to tobacco company sponsorship of rodeo in other states and at other rural events.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the session, participants will be able to
• describe how media advocacy can be used as a tool for eliminating tobacco sponsorship at rural sporting events;
• explain why framing spit tobacco as a health issue is not the primary framing strategy to eliminate tobacco sponsorship at rodeos and other community events; and
• identify the key frames and strategies for eliminating tobacco sponsorship at rodeos.

Keywords: Media Advocacy, Spit Tobacco

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.