How Indonesian Media Frame the Harms and Benefits of E-cigarette

摘要

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarette), of which the health effects are still unknown, have been sold in Indonesian market since 2010. We sought to examine the portrayals of harms and benefits of e-cigarette in online news media as they have been the new main source of information among Indonesians. This study performed a quantitative content-analysis method in online news articles published by four most popular online news media in Indonesia from 2012 to 2017. The news articles were obtained from the media websites and Google Advance Search. The reports were reliably coded for topics of the story, news source, and coverage of benefits and harms of these products. Framing of e-cigarette is equally or more harmful than traditional cigarettes appeared more than framing of e-cigarette is not harmful or less harmful than traditional cigarettes. Over time, e-cigarette was portrayed more negatively with a sudden three-fold increase in the number of articles published from 2016 to 2017. The outnumbering negative frames of e-cigarette indicated that the online news media tried to influence the public to oppose these products. However, the tendency of dominantly portraying the negative effects of e-cigarette must be supported by more scientific evidence on the effects of the devices. Future research investigating the political economy of media may obtain a deeper understanding on how online news media produce their stories.