Tobacco Industry Use of Personal Responsibility Rhetoric in Public Relations and Litigation: Disguising Freedom to Blame as Freedom of Choice

摘要

We examined the tobacco industry’s rhetoric to frame personal responsibility arguments. The industry rarely uses the phrase “personal responsibility” explicitly, but rather “freedom of choice.” When freedom of choice is used in the context of litigation, the industry means that those who choose to smoke are solely to blame for their injuries. When used in the industry’s public relations messages, it grounds its meaning in the concept of liberty and the right to smoke. The courtroom “blame rhetoric” has influenced the industry’s larger public relations message to shift responsibility away from the tobacco companies and onto their customers. Understanding the rhetoric and framing that the industry employs is essential to combating this tactic, and we apply this comprehension to other industries that act as disease vectors. Throughout the history of tobacco control, as concerns over health have prompted public calls for reform, the tobacco industry has attempted to combat criticism and influence public health debates through the use of rhetorical techniques that deflect attention from corporate responsibility. 1,2 The tobacco industry’s use of personal responsibility frames, or arguments, to protect its business interests against litigation 3 (p870–873), 4 (p820), 5–8 and regulation and tobacco control measures 9,10 (p197–198), 11–14 (p406) has been widely recognized. Although previous studies have enumerated and described many of the key frames employed by the tobacco industry and its allies, there is still important work to be done in more rigorously analyzing the relationships between the content of this rhetoric and its origin in either the legal or public relations (PR) context. Such an analysis helps illuminate the importance of subtle variations in the deployment of similar language to convey diverse meanings that can sway public opinion and regulators’ actions. 15 This study also can inform efforts aimed at other industries that produce products that have a negative impact on public health, such as sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and junk food, all of which employ techniques the tobacco industry originated and perfected. 16 Framing refers to the use of key concepts familiar to the listener that help guide the understanding of an issue. 17 In particular, frames structure for the audience the cause of social problems and prescribe which actors should and should not act to address them. 18 Powerful default frames such as personal responsibility indicate that those who suffer the consequences of consuming certain risky products, such as smokers, are to blame for their injuries and that it is not the role of social institutions such as the government to intervene and protect them. 19 Analyzing which frames are present—and absent—in public discourse such as the news is especially valuable as these frames influence policymakers by helping set the agenda for public debates, and signaling which issues are salient and which others are less urgent. 20,21 The trajectory of the tobacco industry’s use of personal responsibility framing and argumentation began in 1954, when the major US tobacco companies reacted to the release of scientific studies linking smoking and cancer by hiring a PR firm to craft an advertisement called “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers,” which claimed the industry “accept[ed] an interest in people’s health as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business.” 9 The industry’s purposely ineffectual efforts to address the dangers of smoking amounted to little more than whitewash and PR rhetoric, with a major emphasis on obfuscation and delay in verifying whether its products were deadly, along with an effort to maintain this as an “open scientific controversy.” In 1964, US Surgeon General Luther Terry released a landmark report that analyzed and evaluated the existing scientific research, concluding that smoking causes disease and death. 22 Closely following was the passage of the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (FCLAA) in 1965, which required warning labels on cigarette packages (mandatory warnings for cigarette advertising were later added in 1969) with the tepid and equivocal verbiage “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health.” 2,23 At that time the emphasis by the public and regulators was largely on governmental accountability for addressing the problems cigarette smoking caused, while the tobacco industry escaped most culpability and accountability, even weathering the imposition of mandatory warning labels by turning it to its advantage as another way of assigning blame to smokers for their illnesses. 24 In 1986, Congress passed the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act, which required rotating warning labels that were phrased unequivocally linking smoking with particular diseases. 25 In the 1970s, after warning labels were imposed and both governmental agencies and voluntary