Smoking in Media: A Growing Concern for Public Health
Addiction Economy Thought for Today - new article in the British Medical Journal by Caroline Cerny expressing concern about the increased portrayal of smoking in popular entertainment. I was thinking it must be me being more alert to it recently, but I think it is growing too. Ensure how much this is product placement in eg music videos, or 'creative rebellion/freedom'.
I noticed this yesterday in the first Episode of the new Cormoran Strike series Ink Black Heart (below) when the very cool computer game guru insisted on smoking because she felt so stressed because her life was in danger and came to Robin for help.
She was eventually killed and the series is about why. But I was twitchy about it, though perfectly legitimate and realistic in the context - super anxious person smoking (Robin initially said no, but let her because she was so upset) - but she could be seen as such a role model, and portrayal of cigs as soothing in times of stress, was not something to make so front and centre and felt could have been avoided. Cormoran smokes too.
Very tricky and understandable creatively. But so important when smoking is dying out not to resurrect it through portraying it in a 'positive' light like this.
BMJ:
"Where does accountability for this worrying trend lie? Should public health considerations influence artistic licence? Clearly, there’s a difference between the media publishing images of celebrities or influencers being caught smoking and creatives making a conscious decision to depict smoking in a film or other media format. Regulators like Ofcom (for television and on-demand video) and the British Board of Film Classification (for films and video games) should have a crucial role in protecting young people from media influences that could encourage smoking. Their guidelines provide limited protection for children by stipulating that smoking should not be shown in children’s TV programmes and requiring film classifications to take into account how smoking is depicted, but these regulations require strengthening.
"These rules are also hopelessly out of touch when considering the vast and wide ranging ways that children (particularly teenagers) consume media, including a swathe of user created content that has little or no regulation governing it. Social media platforms are profiting from serving up this harmful content, while taking little or no responsibility for the harm it’s perpetuating. Popular culture has the power to influence behaviour—and with that power comes responsibility. In the absence of any current workable controls around social media content, it’s up to platforms, influencers, creators, and artists of all kinds to push back against the normalisation of an addiction that is anything but glamorous and to take responsibility for the message they are sending."
BMJ Here:
https://lnkd.in/eR3sCsEh