Cigarette Pacakging

Cigarette Packaging: Comparative Language Analysis
As Australian society and the community develop throughout the years, many people are opting for healthier food choices, healthier lifestyles, and overall, are just more health conscious. Thus, the issue of smoking cigarettes and the health hazards it engenders has become a popular topic among the public. Recently, in Australia, legislation was passed that requires all cigarettes to be sold in plain green packaging, with no branding. The introduction of this legislation has stirred up much commotion, causing people to voice their opinion through the media. In the opinion article:’ Plain cigarette packaging will change smoking… slowly’, (No Date, The Conversation), Paul Harrison conveys his support for the new legislation, as he believes, from his extended research, that it can help to discourage smoking. On the other hand, Brendan O’Neill displays an opposing viewpoint through his opinion article, ‘Plain packaging is an infringement of free speech’ (26 November 2011, The Australian), suggesting that this new law is yet another one of the government’s ways of suppressing the public’s right to freedom of speech.

Harrison’s headline ‘Plain cigarette packaging will change smoking…slowly’, clearly depicts his position on the issue. The emphasis, however, is laid heavily on the word ‘slowly’, which he places after a set of ellipses. The layout of his article mirrors his contention that plain packaging will be a ‘slow’ process in encouraging smokers to quit. He begins the article by giving some background information about the way marketing works. Next, Harrison provides some evidence of the positive effects banning cigarette advertising has achieved through a summary of the history of smoking in Australia. He begins his next paragraph with a simple statement- ‘The next step’. The writer builds up his arguments in a logical and systematic manner, reflecting his view that the new legislation also works in a step-by-step approach, which is ‘slow’ and ‘incremental’. Because Harrison’s arguments are written in such a way, it is intended to make it simpler for the reader to follow and understand, whilst also aiming to show doubtful readers how the plain packaging of tobacco products take effect in an orderly way, rather than having an ‘immediate’ and ‘direct’ result.

Drawing on his expertise as a senior university lecturer in business, Harrison discusses, in a professional tone, the techniques of marketing. He likens marketing to a ‘game’, which utilizes ‘tactics’ to encourage the customer to purchase the particular product or brand. This creates an image of gaming marketers; people who sit behind a television with a set of controls, using strategies to manipulate customers to buy their products. From this comparison, readers are intended to feel manipulated by the commercials and ads around them, and thus, in order to feel in control, they should agree to the banning of tobacco branding. To reinforce his argument, Harrison cites references to ‘marketing professors Janet Hoek, Phillip Gendall and Jordan Louviere’, aiming to convince the reader that branding is associated with a psychological factor of ‘respondent conditioning’, and hence people’s psychological and emotional desires to smoke cigarettes are related to ‘tobacco brand imagery’. By witnessing expert evidence, apart from that of the writer, the audience is reassured that the information they are presented with is reliable and free from bias, and therefore they are encouraged to agree with Harrison’s viewpoint.

The writer includes some history of smoking in Australia and accentuates the significant changes in the number of smokers after ‘normalisation’ of non-smoking was introduced. In an earlier statement, Harrison briefly mentions how in order to quit, regardless of marketing or not, the desire to do so must firstly exist, although the behavioral normalisation of smoking makes it difficult for a smoker to quit. While he recognizes the difficulties of ‘normalisation’, he addresses it again, but demonstrates how it can in fact help to reduce the degree of smoking. In chronological order, Harrison provides statistics and factual evidence from history, starting from 1945, when 72% of Australian men were smokers to 2007, when 21% of men and 18% of women were smokers. The stark contrast is intended to position the reader to realise the potential of the ‘normalisation of non-smoking’. Harrison’s implication is that the legislation to ban tobacco company branding will be a huge success, as history provides an optimistic result, thus intended to evoke feelings of faith in the reader towards plain-packaging of cigarettes.

A snippet of the statistics of how ‘incremental measures’ have reduced smoking has also been used as a blurb to accompany a photograph. The photograph shows an image of a person smoking, with their lower face and hand predominantly taking up two thirds of the photograph. A blackened cigarette butt is held between the forefinger and middle finger, creating an unattractive pose that is intended to evoke feelings of disapproval in the reader. The photo does not give the person an identity as most of the face is not shown. Instead, it focuses more on the behavior of the smokers, suggesting that smoking has become such a common and ‘normalised’ activity, that its difficult to identify only one individual that smokes.

Transitioning from an authoritative tone as he explains the commercial aspect of the issue, Harrison shifts to a sarcastic style as he takes on a more personal stance. Firstly, he acknowledges the counter-opinions of how the introduction of plain paper packaging is ‘unlikely to make hard-core smokers give up’. However, he quickly moves on to provide reasons why plain-packaging will be successful. Harrison’s mentioning of opposing opinions is intended to portray himself as a rational person who has given the issue thorough consideration, encouraging the reader to believe that they are receiving unbiased and trustworthy information. They are thus more likely to agree with Harrison’s viewpoint. He attacks the tobacco companies’ claims of the international trademark and intellectual property rights the legislation supposedly infringes, stating that their claims are ‘silly’ and ‘a little desperate’. To support his perspective, Harrison lists the tobacco companies’ arguments of how ‘the removal of branding will have no effect on consumer behavior’ as there is no research to prove it. He refutes this, however, by exposing the . Provided with statistics, readers are positioned to agree with Harrison as there is concrete evidence, which also aims to make readers view the tobacco companies as unreasonable people proposing delusive claims. He uses rhetorical questions to reveal the hypocritical assertions of the tobacco companies, highlighting the irony of the legal action the companies have taken on the government’s ban on what they see as ‘useless branding’. In displaying the contradictions in the tobacco companies’ accusations, Harrison manages to cleverly attack them indirectly, by simply using logic to appeal to the reader’s sense of intelligence. The reader is encouraged to share the writer’s opinion as they would not want to be attacked for agreeing with the tobacco company’s obvious deceiving claims.

Conversely, O’Neill uses irony to introduce his opposing stance on the issue. Whilst he describes the legislation, in an indignant and sarcastic tone, against branding boxes with ‘evil logos of Marlboro…or Benson & Hedges’, and comments on the ‘graphic health warnings’ that are ‘hector(ing) dumb smokers’ about their ‘filthy habit’, his exaggerated use of emotive language in describing these things is intended to evoke emotions of anger against the government. O’Neill suggests that this is how the government perceives tobacco companies and smokers, and hence employs irony to mock the government as shallow-minded. Readers are positioned to share the writer’s ridicule against the government, and therefore agree with his view of the government as ‘bossy’ and ‘intolerant’.

Like Harrison, O’Neill addresses the tobacco companies claims of how the government is ‘infringing trademark rights’. However, instead of opposing this idea, he asserts, in a definitive tone using a colloquial term, that this is ‘no doubt true’. He says that people ‘fork out cash for the ciggies’ and not because they like the ‘fancy logo’ on the box, and then downplays the implications of their addiction to cigarettes by simply stating that they ‘like’ the nicotine inside it. By doing so, the intention is to diminish the negative connotations of the suggested addiction, and instead, accent how ‘fancy logos’ will not alter the customer’s decision to purchase cigarettes, encouraging the reader to oppose the ban on branding because of its futility.

Moreover, the writer declares that this legislation is a ‘infringement of free speech’. He compares the company’s rights of publishing ‘perfectly reasonable’ and ‘inoffensive material’ to the ‘propaganda’ he believes tobacco companies are being ‘forced’ to publish on behalf of the Australian government. This ‘propaganda’ includes publishing ‘disgusting images’ of ‘blackened lungs’ or ‘dead bodies’ alongside ‘scary sentences’. The choice of the word ‘propaganda’ is intended to encourage the reader to perceive the legislation as some sort of government brainwashing activity, rather than a health hazard awareness, swaying readers to oppose the banning of branding as they would not want to be considered unintelligent and easily led.

By alluding to the government’s ‘propaganda’, With the introduction of his government ‘propaganda’ belief, O’Neill appeals to the readers’ sense of freedom, and hence, fears of constraint. He depicts the government using ‘strong arm tactics’, where people are forced to ‘parrot the government line’. O’Neill likens the governments ban on cigarette branding to banning a mascot of a children’s cereal because it contains too much sugar, or banning the use of the words ‘beer’ and ‘wine’ in a liquor store. In a cynical manner, O’Neill insinuates that placing a ban on cigarette branding is as ridiculous as any of the examples stated above. Thus the reader is obliged to feel the same way if they do not want to be viewed as accepting authoritarianism.

O’Neill’s claim that the underlying reason for ‘censoriousness’ is due to the ‘fantastically snobbish’ and ‘paternalistic fear’ of the government. He appeals to the readers sense of independence and pride, comparing the governments perception of society’s helplessness to little rodents called ‘lemmings’, which swim out to sea, and in turn, fail to survive as they drown in the ocean. By suggesting the government’s perception of them as lemmings, O’Neill implies that the government believes people do not think for themselves, and instead are ‘easily enslaved’ and ‘weak-willed’, preferring to blindly follow everyone else in what they do or say. Combining this analogy with inclusive language, O’Neill invites the readers to share his outrage at this analogy, as the reader is intended to feel victimized by the comments and not wish to conform to the governments’ views of being fragile and vulnerable.

The two texts approach the issue of the plain packaging legislation from different perspectives, and take contrasting approaches to convince the reader to share their viewpoint. Harrison’s more authoritative stance allows him to use his professionalism to persuade the reader through logical explanations that support his arguments; while O’Neill’s article contains, perhaps overly emotive language, to appeal to the reader’s fear an outrage by suggesting their freedom is being attacked.