SOCIETAL STRESS AND THE ADVERTISING OF ADDICTIVE PRODUCTS

Louis K. Falk, Florida International University and
Robert W. Jones, University of North Carolina

The central theme of the paper is that a major event which gains prominence in the media will gain salience in the public mind. This in turn will influence to some degree the advertising emphasis in that period. A content analysis of magazines was conducted to ascertain if a relationship exits between an event which has gained prominence in the media and the advertising from that period. The space race (1957-1963) was selected as the event for this study. The advertisements were separated into categories with the intention of comparing alcohol and tobacco advertisements to the rest of the advertisements as well as the feature articles. The results suggest there is a negative correlation between the space themes reflected in magazines and the alcohol/tobacco advertisements.

Introduction

Epstein and Perkins (1988) define psychological stress as "an internal subjective state involving the perception of threat to one's well-being." They also note that other studies have demonstrated that psychological stress appears to be a very significant factor in maintaining smoking behavior and in smoking relapses (Ashton & Stepney, 1982, Shiffman, 1982). Similarly, there are reports of many surveys which seem to indicate that people who consume alcohol expect the alcohol to relieve stress-induced negative emotions (Cooper, Russell, Skinner, Frone & Mudar 1992). The notion that consumption of alcohol reduces stress was formalized by Conger (1956) and extended to the smoking situation. Since that time, studies have indicated some modifications in that notion (Cooper, et al, 1992; Epstein & Perkins, 1988; Steele, Southwick, & Pagano 1986; Steele & Josephs, 1988), but some link appears to remain between stress reduction and consumption of these products.

This link would appear to have some interesting implications for the advertisement of alcohol and tobacco, especially during a period of perceived stress in the society. Since the mass media deliver advertising messages as well as messages about the social landscape which influence the public consciousness, a examination of the link between and advertising and social messages would seem appropriate. The process by which these mass media messages influence the public consciousness has been called agenda-setting. This notion has been widely accepted during the last few decades, but it is not a new idea. Walter Lippman spoke of this function in 1922 when he said "the press daily fills our mental picture of the distant world...our `unseen environment' (Lippman, 1922). Shaw and McCombs (1972) popularized the idea when they tested it and argued that mass media do more than merely relay the news and because of the natural subjectivity involved in the production, processing, and dissemination of information, the public is a recipient of someone else's agenda.

This ability to effect cognitive change among individuals, to structure their thinking, has been labeled the agenda-setting function of mass communication. Here may lie the most important effect of mass communication, its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us (p.5).

This agenda-setting function of the media has been repeatedly demonstrated by researchers since Shaw and McCombs' study (Stone & McCombs, 1981; Winter & Eyal, 1981). However, "most of these studies have been limited to an examination of the agenda-setting function for the transfer of issue saliences from media to voters under varying conditions" (Ghorpade, 1985. p. 5). Evidence from these studies suggests that the different media (newspaper vs. television) often have different agendas for news (Weaver, et. al., 1976). Weaver (1981) refers to this as the spotlighting effect of television, as opposed to the agenda-setting role of newspapers. "McCombs (1977) reported that newspapers were early primers in a political campaign, while television was more influential as the election date neared" (Ghorpade, 1985, p. 5). Other studies have looked at the effect of paid political messages (advertisements) on the conveyance of issue saliences to voters (Atkin & Heald, 1976; Patterson & McClure, 1976; Bowers, 1977).

The agenda-setting function of the mass media is most obvious among those who have not yet formed an opinion on an issue or candidate, service or product (Sutherland & Galloway, 1981). With this in mind, it has been only recently that the agenda-setting concept has been expanded to fields such as advertising (Sutherland & Galloway, 1981; Ghorpade, 1986). The application of the concept in advertising is to "focus consumers' attention on what values, products, brands, or attributes to think about rather than to persuade consumers what to think of these" (Sutherland & Galloway, 1981, p.26). In general, advertising is used most of the time to portray the significance of a problem to the public so the public will solve that problem by buying a product, service or concept. Agenda-setting, as demonstrated in previous research (Shaw, et. al., 1972), helps determine what is important and what is not important by emphasizing an issue or problem.

Agenda-setting research has established that agenda is an important link in the mass communication process" (Sutherland & Galloway, 1981, p. 27). Advertising helps to establish the agenda through placement of ads, length of ads, and by using a somewhat accurate picture of society and its problems to offer solutions to those problems.

Despite the substantial size of the advertising institution, advertising is not perceived as a direct reflection of popular culture. The effects of advertising as well as its historical significance on society are not fully understood. The average person uses products to solve daily problems. Advertisements provide information about products which might provide solutions to these problems. In that respect, the advertisement has two functions. The first is historical. Advertising preserves a somewhat accurate record of society's problems. The second function is informational. Advertising informs consumers what problems the product will solve. In addition, advertising penetrates all aspects of society through a variety of sources such as magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and billboards. Sissors states that advertising mirrors "at least to some extent the value systems and consumer needs of individuals within society, and that it widely disseminates news about the majority's value systems to a huge audience" (O'Keefe, Nash & Liu, 1981, p. 535). This supports the notion of advertising as an historical record.

The modern techniques of advertising often point to what is wrong in a consumer's life with the hope of correcting the problem. These techniques not only document the product's usefulness, but also record the perceived problems of popular culture. "Within these advertisements, various elements can be used to reconstruct the popular agenda of the culture" (Powell, 1984).

The reflection of a particular time period through advertisements would seems to be based upon the agenda set during that time period by the media. Many studies have looked at agenda-setting and its effect on society. There are relatively few that have looked at agenda-setting through advertising. Most of the ones that have concerned themselves with political advertising (Bowers, 1973, Atkin & Heald, 1976, McClure, 1974).

Certain major events, established by the agenda-setting function of the press within the last 40 years, have led to changes in advertisement emphasis, strategies, and themes. It is hypothesized that by looking back at these events we can track their effects through the advertising of that period. The event chosen for this study was the space race which began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. The space race seems to be an especially appropriate backdrop for an examination of tobacco and alcohol advertising. First, the singular event of the launching of Sputnik represented a clear-cut case of a strong mass media agenda coupled with a kind of national panic. Hoyt (1971) expressed it this way:

For years Americans had regarded the Russians as somehow inferior... . The initial shock was followed by urgent and sometimes hysterical public outcry and action in favor or beefing up the study of science in America (p.30).

It would be reasonable to assume that this national panic increased the level of stress in society. And a level of increased stress would seem to be tailor-made for the problem solvers mentioned earlier in this article--the alcohol and tobacco industries. Falk (1993 & 1994) used the space race phenomenon to examine overall advertising and automobile advertising during this period. This study uses Falk's methodology to focus on alcohol and tobacco advertising.

Falk's study of magazine advertising (1993) concluded that while there was a significant increase in space references in advertising during that period, there were indications that these increases varied according to magazine type and product advertised. Based upon Falk's conclusions and the general assertion that increased stress produces and increased market for alcohol and tobacco products, this study tested two hypotheses.

H1: There will be significant positive correlation between the space themes reflected in feature articles and the number of alcohol and tobacco advertisements during the period under study.

H2: There will be significant positive correlation between the space themes reflected in alcohol and tobacco advertising and the types of magazines in which the advertising appears during the period under study.

Methodology

A content analysis was conducted on advertising using five types of magazines during the specific major event time period. The five types of magazines are men's, women's, general, news, and science. Two magazines from each category were selected. They included Esquire, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal, Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, U.S. News and World Report, Time, Popular Science, and Scientific American. The feature articles and alcohol/tobacco advertisements in these magazines were subjected to a content analysis. Every issue that fell within the time period (1957-1963) was included in the population from which the sample was drawn. A ten percent proportional random sample of all issues for each magazine was drawn resulting in a study sample of 174 of a possible 1,680 issues being selected.

Operational definitions were developed for the following terms: advertisement, space and references to space, and alcohol and tobacco advertisement. An advertisement was defined as a full page announcement or description of something with the intent of selling a product or service. The full page stipulation was adopted to eliminate the classified and personal advertisement sections within the selected magazine issues. Space references were divided into graphic or content depictions. A graphic depiction pictorially represented or alluded to the region beyond earth's atmosphere, such as rockets, other planets, and stars. Content is any word or combination of words which mentioned or implied the region beyond earth's atmosphere. Alcohol and tobacco advertisements were defined as advertisements which featured either of these products as the main subject of its marketing or sales message.

The content analysis was conducted using square inches in each magazine as the basic unit of measurement. The magazines were examined for alcohol and tobacco advertisements. Two coders separately categorized each issue to establish reliability. An additional coder was used to resolve any differences between the two primary coders.

Since the sample was a proportional random sample, the data can be generalized to the entire sample population. The use of probability sampling procedure permitted every issue within the sampled years from each of the ten sampled magazines to have an equal chance of being selected. The sample included 174 issues out of a possible 1,680 issues.

Significance was established at P < .05 level. From 174 magazine issues, substantial positive correlations were established between the square inches of feature articles with references to space and the square inches of full page advertisements that contained references to space. Another substantial positive relationship was revealed between the square inches of full page advertising with references to space and the square inches of full page advertisements.

The Pearson R displayed other weak relevant positive correlations. Included is a relationship between the square inches of full page tobacco advertisements and the magazine type. Also included is a positive relationship between the square inches of full page tobacco advertisements and feature articles. Another correlation was uncovered between the square inches of full page advertisements and the full page tobacco advertisements. The weakest positive correlation was established between the square inches of full page advertisements and the square inches of feature articles that contain references to space.

Negative correlations were established between the square inches of full page tobacco advertising and the square inches of feature articles which contain references to space. Another negative correlation was established between the square inches of full page advertisements with references to space and the square inches of tobacco advertisements.

An analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the means for separate types of magazines with respect to: the square inches of tobacco advertisements (figure 1), the square inches of feature articles that contain references to space (figure 2), and the square inches of full page advertisements that contain references to space (figure 3).

The difference between the total square inches by magazine category of space devoted to tobacco advertisements that contain references to space, advertisements that contain references to space, and feature articles that contain references to space is illustrated in figure 4.

Discussion

The results of this research project present insight into the theory that an event which has gained prominence in the media is reflected through advertising. This study was not concerned with how the event gained prominence, rather it assumed that the chosen event had a high level of prominence which was established by the agenda-setting function of the press during the time period of the study (1957-1963).

Within the magazines, significant space references were found, suggesting that the space race was reflected in the feature articles as well as the some of the advertising of the subject time period. The height of the space race was encompassed by the selected time period for the simple reason that more space advertisements should have been available to scrutinize. If there had not been any advertisements that contained space references, the conclusions reached in this study would have been unlikely. The number of alcohol/tobacco advertisements contained within space theme dominate magazines implies that the country's tense climate did not translate into placement of these type of ads. Rather it appeared to have an opposite effect. As the space references in the feature articles and advertisements increased the number of alcohol/tobacco advertisements decreased. This suggests that the advertising practitioners for the alcohol and tobacco industry looked at the contemporary agenda and made a decision that the space race held no selling points for their products.

In this study, the alcohol/tobacco advertising did not reflect the mood of the country. This may not always be the case. The major issue highlighted by this study is why some events are reflected in the advertising from their period and others are not. The key concept in understanding this phenomenon is intentionality. The advertising industry intentionally reflects certain points or qualities that can be associated with an event, with the hopes of using these points to sell products. Since these points are utilized to sell a product or image, the event to which they refer must contain positive attributes that can be used in conjunction with the product. Not all events contain positive attributes. Therefore, if an event does not contain positive attributes it probably will not be reflected in the advertising.

Another factor which plays a role in the reflection of an event through the advertising of its period, is its magnitude. Obviously some minor events will not be reflected because they lack importance. The prominence given to the event by the media could be the factor that determines if it will be reflected.

The negative correlations between alcohol/tobacco advertising, advertising that contains references to space, and feature articles that contain space references, supports the reflection of the space race findings. When a magazine possesses feature articles which contain references to space, the alcohol/tobacco advertising dropped drastically. The same thing occurred when a magazine increased its overall space advertising. This suggests that companies which advertise alcohol/tobacco products made a conscious effort to avoid strong space themes. One possibility for the avoidance would be the lack of strong positive attributes to use in the advertising. If the "space race" situation created tension, it would probably not be in the best interests of the advertisers to overtly remind the market of the source of tension. Gentle, indirect reminders of solutions to the problem might be more effective.

Also, five magazine categories were selected for this study. The use of the term category implies a classification system. The fact that the magazines selected were classified by type suggests that there are distinctions between the types. These distinctions may occur because of the audiences the magazines were trying to attract. The results of the study confirm that was a significant difference between the magazine categories. This could be accounted for by the various target audiences.

The magazine classification system has changed since the time frame selected for this study. Relatively recently, the general magazine group has been swallowed by the magazine categorization system. The specialization trend of the market has led to a graying of the classification line. Modern day magazines are targeting different lifestyles that reflect current times. The evolution of the magazine industry should be accounted for in future research. Future research should also focus on the ways advertisers use the positive and negative attributes of a particular situation to shape their advertising messages.

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