Social representations about cigarrete from radio adverstising messages in Bogota’s teenagers

Abstract

Cigarette consumption, as social problem affecting not only individuals, but also to complete groups, has been studied for several decades, especially from the point of view of disciplines related to the health (Department of Tobacco’s research -INSP, 2004). In spite of this, an increasing interest exists in overcoming this problem from the social sciences, given that falling into habits is a process related to the dynamics of environments concerning social relationships. According to what diverse authors say working on Medical Education, it is necessary to know culture and representations environments, as basic elements to build social behaviour and lifestyles (Universidad de Antioquia, 2000). That is why this study intends to analyze social representations build on cigarette in teenager societies in Bogotá from an analysis of the perception of advertising messages of this product on the radio. A qualitative method was used and by means of a focal groups technique the existing relationship between the message and the building of representation arising prior know-how capabilities, habit-formation, and the social norms were analyzed. The study was conducted on 64 adolescents of the city of Bogotá, belonging to social strata 2, 3 and 4. Finally, based on the information collected some results were reported.