TY - JOUR
T1 - A Media Analysis of the COVID-19 Tobacco Sales Ban in South Africa
AU - Dare, Chengetai
AU - Vellios, Nicole
AU - Kumar, Praveen
AU - Nayak, Radhika
AU - van Walbeek, Corné
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the African Capacity Building Foundation (grant number 334).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - The South African government introduced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020 to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Among other restrictions, the government banned the sale of tobacco products. The ban lasted for nearly five months. We performed a Google search using the keywords smok*, puff*, lockdown, tobacco, and cigarette* for articles published in English from 23 March 2020 to 18 December 2020. This yielded 441 usable online media articles. We identified and categorised the main arguments made by proponents and opponents of the tobacco sales ban. Three themes were identified: medical, legal, and economic/financial. Legal aspects were covered in 48% of articles, followed by economic (34%), and medical aspects (18%). The media was generally ambivalent about the tobacco sales ban during the first five weeks of lockdown. Sentiment subsequently turned against the ban because the medical rationale was not well communicated by the government. There was limited empirical evidence of a link between smoking and contracting COVID-19, and the sales ban was ineffective since most smokers still purchased cigarettes. Policy framing in the media plays an important role in how the public receives the policy. Any future tobacco control policy intervention should be better considered, especially within the context that cigarettes are easily accessed on the illicit market in South Africa.
AB - The South African government introduced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020 to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Among other restrictions, the government banned the sale of tobacco products. The ban lasted for nearly five months. We performed a Google search using the keywords smok*, puff*, lockdown, tobacco, and cigarette* for articles published in English from 23 March 2020 to 18 December 2020. This yielded 441 usable online media articles. We identified and categorised the main arguments made by proponents and opponents of the tobacco sales ban. Three themes were identified: medical, legal, and economic/financial. Legal aspects were covered in 48% of articles, followed by economic (34%), and medical aspects (18%). The media was generally ambivalent about the tobacco sales ban during the first five weeks of lockdown. Sentiment subsequently turned against the ban because the medical rationale was not well communicated by the government. There was limited empirical evidence of a link between smoking and contracting COVID-19, and the sales ban was ineffective since most smokers still purchased cigarettes. Policy framing in the media plays an important role in how the public receives the policy. Any future tobacco control policy intervention should be better considered, especially within the context that cigarettes are easily accessed on the illicit market in South Africa.
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U2 - 10.3390/ijerph20186733
DO - 10.3390/ijerph20186733
M3 - Article
C2 - 37754593
AN - SCOPUS:85172696015
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 20
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 18
M1 - 6733
ER -
