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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

David E. Nelson, MD, MPH¹, W. Douglas Evans, PhD², Linda Pederson, MA, PhD¹, Joel London, MPH³, Gabrielle Robinson, MPH¹, and Stephen Babb, MPH³. (1) Office of Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway, NW MS-K50, Atlanta, GA 30341, 770 488-2401, den2@cdc.gov, (2) Health Promotion Research, RTI International, 701 13th Street, NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20005, (3) Office on Smoking and Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 3005 Chamblee Tucker Rd, Atlanta, GA 30341

Agenda-setting theory outlines the powerful role that news media play in shaping the issues discussed by the public and policymakers and how these issues are framed. Long-term surveillance of tobacco issues in the news media is important to assess the extent and type of messages to which audiences are exposed and to systematically assess communication efforts. Conducting such surveillance in a cost-efficient manner is a challenge. CDC's Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) has developed a system that uses a relatively simple content analysis system to track coverage of tobacco issues in 10 major national newspapers, 3 wire services, and 7 national television news networks and cable channels. Reliability testing of a 10 percent sample by two coders found mean kappa values for newspaper/wire service articles and television transcripts of 0.76 (range: 0.59 to 0.95) and 0.72 (range: 0.55 to 0.88), respectively. From January 1, 2004, through July 31, 2005, we identified and coded 1,336 newspaper/newswire service articles and 529 television news transcripts. The number of television stories increased sharply from 2004 to the first half of 2005. Most newspapers carried a large number of tobacco stories; in contrast, 50% of all television stories were aired on CNN. The main tobacco theme in television stories was health effects/statistics (51%); in contrast, the main themes in newspapers were policy/regulation (32%), legal/lawsuits (23%), and health effects/statistics (16%). This system could be adapted by state and local tobacco control programs, and has utility for both evaluation and research purposes.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants in this session will be able to

• Identify factors to consider in developing a news media monitoring system.
• Increase their knowledge about how tobacco news coverage differs between television and newspapers.

Keywords: Communication, Media

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation