Table 2.
Characteristics of the Sample of 66 Cigarette-Related Videos and 61 Hookah-Related Videos
| Characteristic | Cigarette-Related Videos | Hookah-Related Videos | P | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Narrator characteristics | No. (%) | Example | No. (%) | Example | |
| Gender* | .22 | ||||
| Male | 42 (69) | N/A | 48 (79) | N/A | |
| Female or Mixed | 19 (31) | N/A | 13 (21) | N/A | |
| Age* | .02 | ||||
| ≤30 | 55 (85) | N/A | 59 (97) | N/A | |
| >30 | 10 (15) | N/A | 2 (3) | N/A | |
| Race* | .74 | ||||
| White | 41 (69) | N/A | 40 (67) | N/A | |
| Non-White | 18 (31) | N/A | 20 (33) | N/A | |
| Production quality | <.001 | ||||
| Low | 27 (41) | A homemade video, most likely recorded on a computer recording program, shows a college-aged white woman sitting in a bedroom and singing an acoustic version of a pop song that refers to cigarettes while a college-aged white man accompanies her on guitar. | 46 (75) | A blurry video, most likely produced on a cell phone, shows 2 South Asian men blowing large clouds of smoke and doing tricks with smoke after inhaling from a hookah pipe. | |
| Moderate | 11 (17) | In a homemade video that includes titles, music, edits, and some attention to lighting, an African American man in his mid-20s gives his opinion of the video of an Indonesian baby smoking cigarettes. | 12 (20) | In a homemade video of a hookah being prepared by several college-aged men, there are many special effects (e.g., editing cuts and fade-ins) as the text at the bottom of the screen explains the process and electronic dance music plays. | |
| High | 28 (42) | A professionally made music video that mentions cigarettes makes use of multiple camera angles in shots of a singer and dancers. It contains frequent editing cuts, clear audio, good lighting, and special effects such as slow motion. | 3 (5) | In a 1980s music video with several camera angles and edits, good lighting, and good audio features, the female band members play and sing a song that refers to hookahs and cigarettes. | |
| Overall portrayal of smoking | <.001 | ||||
| Positive | 16 (24) | A rock music video portrays attractive young white men and women who are smoking and drinking alcohol at a concert and back-stage while listening to music with lyrics that refer to alcohol, cigarettes, and partying. | 56 (92) | A male hookah bar owner in his 30s describes hookah bars as mellow, entertaining, and fun places to bring a date. He is standing next to a booth in which 2 college-aged women are smoking a hookah and doing tricks with smoke. | |
| Negative | 28 (42) | A middle-aged white male doctor stands in the hallway of what appears to be a doctor’s office and explains the negative physiological effects of smoking cigarettes. | 0 (0) | N/A | |
| Neutral | 22 (33) | A young white female musician plays the piano and sings a song with the lyrics “cause you’re my rock star, in between the sets, eyeliner and cigarettes.” | 5 (8) | A young woman plays the ukulele and sings a humorous song about the subject of the song’s future children discovering photos of their parent smoking hookah and doing other potentially embarrassing or controversial things. | |
| Association of smoking with positive characteristics | |||||
| Humor | 17 (26) | Three white British young men parody a well-known pop song with humorous lyrics about celebrities, teen culture, sexual jokes, and slapstick physical comedy. They refer to menthol cigarettes. | 7 (11) | Four men who are in their 20s and early 30s and are of different ethnicities compete in an Olympics-style race to determine who can be the first to properly set up, light, and smoke a hookah while “judges” comment and laugh. | .04 |
| Attractiveness | 12 (18) | In a vintage smoking advertisement, a young well-groomed woman, wearing a strapless dress and jewelry, smokes a cigarette and smiles and lifts her eyebrows at the camera after exhaling. | 9 (15) | Two flirtatious white college-aged women blow smoke rings and do other tricks with hookah smoke while a 30 year-old white man comments on their skills and tells how “hookah girls” help people enjoy hookah lounges. | .29 |
| Power | 5 (8) | In a montage of smoking scenes from a popular television series, young and middle-aged white businessmen and businesswomen who wear fashionable period clothes are shown smoking cigarettes. | 2 (3) | A man off camera uses masculine and derogatory language to demonstrate his command of hookah preparation and to provide instructions about setting up a hookah as a woman carries out his instructions. | .29 |
| Sexuality | 16 (24) | In a documentary on the spread of cigarette smoking in the United States, a white man in his 60s or 70s tells how cigarette smoking by women in early movies was used to characterize them as prostitutes or sexually immoral women. | 9 (15) | While sitting in a basement, a group of white college-aged men smoke hookah. One of them makes a sexual gesture with the hookah hose and raises his eyebrows suggestively as he smokes. | .18 |
| Sociability | 18 (27) | A man smokes a single cigarette in one drag, without exhaling, while his friends comment, laugh, and cheer him on in the background. | 22 (36) | While sitting at a kitchen table, 3 white college students (1 woman and 2 men) smoke hookah and talk about themselves and hookah smoking in talk-show style. | .29 |
| Exoticness | 0 (0) | N/A | 2 (3) | A middle-aged white male hookah bar owner talks about hookah smoking as part of Middle Eastern culture and discusses the history of hookah smoking. | .14 |
| Association of smoking with negative or health-related consequences | |||||
| Short-term health consequences | 33 (50) | A montage of people smoking in a popular television program shows several people coughing after inhaling cigarette smoke. | 11 (18) | In a cartoon video, Alice from Alice in Wonderland coughs and tries to fan hookah smoke away from her face when the caterpillar blows smoke in her direction. | <.001 |
| Long-term health consequences | 29 (44) | A middle-aged black man who is presenting a magic trick with cigarettes mentions that he does not smoke and says that if children are watching, they should not start smoking, because it is bad for people’s health and has been known to cause cancer. | 1 (2) | A college-aged white female sitting at her kitchen table with 2 college-aged white males says that hookah tobacco does not contain chemicals or tar but does contain nicotine. She says, “It’s not good for you, but we still like doing it.” | <.001 |
| Children smoking | 16 (24) | The video shows footage of a male Indonesian toddler smoking cigarettes while his parents and other people watch him, with narration by a male British reporter. | 1 (2) | In a cartoon video, Alice from Alice in Wonderland inhales second-hand hookah smoke from the hookah-smoking caterpillar. | <.001 |
| Antismoking message | 26 (39) | An educational video targeted at college students discusses the prevalence of cigarette smoking among college students and advises students to quit as soon as possible because cigarettes are “deadly as ever.” | 0 (0) | N/A | <.001 |
| How to quit smoking | 14 (21) | A middle-aged white man from the United States demonstrates how he is quitting cigarette smoking by using Nicorette™ gum. | 0 (0) | N/A | <.001 |
| Content | |||||
| Minimization of health risk | 8 (12) | A video advertisement for electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) promotes them as a healthier way to inhale nicotine than smoking regular cigarettes. | 11 (18) | A college-aged Arab-American man discusses electronic hookah charcoal, displays a box that says “No carbon monoxide,” and says there is less carbon monoxide in the electronic hookah charcoal than in regular hookah charcoal. | .35 |
| Brand reference or appeal | 22 (33) | Three white male teenagers sit in a basement or garage and smoke a specific cigarette brand, commenting on its qualities, availability, and price and discussing other topics as well. | 17 (28) | Two males in their late 20’s or early 30’s demonstrate how they made a special holiday hookah for a hookah website’s contest. They show the can of the specific brand of hookah tobacco that they used and show the name in the text. | .51 |
| Tricks | 10 (15) | A middle-aged white male magician does several tricks with cigarettes, including lighting the cigarette off his finger, making the cigarette disappear, smoking several cigarettes at once, and using a cigarette to light his arm on fire. | 32 (52) | In a video montage of a college-aged white man from the United States, the man blows smoke rings and does other tricks with hookah smoke while sitting in a bedroom with movie and pop-culture posters on the walls. | <.001 |
| How to smoke or set up a smoking device | 4 (6) | A documentary narrated by a middle-aged man shows how cigarettes are manufactured. | 25 (41) | In a video with lots of editing and electronic dance music playing, a young Asian woman demonstrates how to set up and smoke a hookah while the steps are described in text. | <.001 |
| Fetishism | 6 (9) | An attractive white female in her late teens, wearing a lacy lingerie top and underwear, lies on a bed close to the camera, with a box of cigarettes in front of her, smoking a cigarette and suggestively inhaling smoke and licking her lips. | 0 (0) | N/A | .02 |
| Music | 35 (53) | Rock music plays in the background of an advertisement for e-cigarettes. | 29 (48) | Hip-hop music plays in the background while a group of men of various ages and ethnicities smoke hookah together in a living room. | .54 |
| Music video | 18 (27) | A middle-aged black woman sings about chain smoking at night because her lover left and also sings that she could quit smoking cigarettes if her lover came back. | 4 (7) | A homemade music video of a song from the 1960s contains references to the hookah-smoking caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. | .002 |
| Historical or documentary footage | 7 (11) | In a video with clips of old television cigarette commercials and World War II footage of soldiers smoking cigarettes, several narrators comment on the history of cigarettes and share personal anecdotes. | 1 (2) | A middle-aged white male hookah bar owner talks about hookah smoking as part of Middle Eastern culture and describes the history of hookah smoking. | .04 |
| Poetry | 1 (2) | As a middle-aged male poet describes important moments in his life when cigarettes were present, images pertaining to his story appear on the screen. | 1 (2) | The hookah-smoking caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland tells Alice a poem and illustrates it with images created with the hookah smoke. | .96 |
Abbreviation: N/A indicates not applicable.
*
For computation of percentages, individuals with indeterminate socio-demographic characteristics were not included.