Framing the nicotine debate: A cultural approach to risk

This study examined Congressional testimony concerning regulation of tobacc o advertising by 3 policy factions representing industry, government, and l ay activists. On the basis of the cultural theory of risk, policy disputant s were divided into entrepreneurial, bureaucratic, and egalitarian communit ies, each with a distinct cosmology that impedes discourse among the groups . The authors examined ways in which the 3 policy factions framed the tobac co advertising issues to see the extent to which such unique cosmologies we re expressed or whether mutual frames might signal opportunities for negoti ation among the interest groups. Major themes in the testimony were identif ied through semantic network analysis and clustering of associated words th at revealed discourse patterns peculiar to each group and reflective of the ir cultural biases toward health risk. Semantic network analysis can be a t ool to clarify these presuppositions and unmask relations among factions, t hereby bridging policy solutions across interest groups.