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Purpose. To characterize the presence of advocacy groups in media coverage about tobacco issues. Design. A content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles. Setting. Australia. Sample. All 12 national and state capital daily newspapers published in Australia between 2004 and 2007. Measures. We coded each article for explicit mentions of any of 16 major national or state tobacco control advocacy groups; for the article type, prominence, and topic; for the tone of the event; and for the author's opinion. Analysis. A series of 2 × 2 χ2 analyses assessed the extent to which advocacy groups were more or less likely to be mentioned in articles of each type, prominence, topic, event impact, and opinion orientation. Results. Of the 4387 tobacco-related articles published over this period, 22% mentioned an advocacy group. There was a greater-than-expected proportion of advocacy groups mentioned in news articles with very high prominence (44%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 27.4, p < .001), high prominence (34%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 10.9, p < .001), and medium prominence (30%; χ2 [1, N = 3118] = 7.3, p = .007), and in articles covering events with mixed (30%; χ2 [1, N = 4387] = 10.0, p = .002) or positive (24%; χ2 [1, N = 4387] = 26.1, p < .001) implications for tobacco control. Conclusions. Australian tobacco control advocacy groups have a reasonable presence within the news discourse on tobacco control issues and so are likely to contribute to generating and shaping this discourse, particularly in relation to evolving and controversial issues.

AbstractAimsTo investigate whether 'low sugar' and related claims influence consumers' perceptions of the healthiness or other attributes of alcoholic drinks, promote greater consumption or impact diet and activity behaviour intentions.MethodN = 501 Australian women aged 18–35 viewed and rated six images of alcoholic drinks in a randomized online experiment with a 2 (claim: low sugar claim, no claim control) × 2 (drink type: cider, ready-to-drink spirits) between-subjects design.ResultsParticipants who viewed drinks with low sugar claims rated them as healthier, less harmful to health, lower in sugar and kilojoules, and more suitable for weight management and a healthy diet than participants who viewed identical drinks with no claim (P &lt; 0.001-P = 0.002). Drinks with low sugar claims were also perceived as being lower in alcohol (P &lt; 0.001) despite being of equivalent alcohol content. There were no significant differences in anticipated social approval associated with consumption or in hypothetical intended consumption of the drinks, but participants who viewed drinks with low sugar claims were less likely to indicate they would compensate for consumption of the drink by modifying food intake or physical activity (P = 0.01).ConclusionsLow sugar and related claims on alcoholic drinks can generate a health halo: consumers generalise from a specific favourable attribute (low sugar) to misperceive other favourable health- and nutrition-related attributes, including lower alcohol content. Findings support calls to reconsider the permissibility of low sugar claims on alcoholic drinks as they may mislead consumers.