Messages in flames: a discursive look at cigarette packaging in Brazil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/1679-0383.2026.v47.54933Keywords:
Discourse analysis, Contested markets, Consumer vulnerability, CigarettesAbstract
This paper investigates how the discourses present on cigarette packaging in Brazil operate as instruments of symbolic regulation within a contested market. Framing smoking as a practice embedded in moral, institutional, and economic disputes, the study articulates three central dimensions: contested markets, consumer vulnerability, and the discursive mechanisms employed in anti-smoking campaigns. Adopting a qualitative approach grounded in Discourse Analysis, with emphasis on the enunciative function, the research examines textual and visual elements from seven new health warnings displayed on cigarette packages. The findings reveal that these discourses go beyond merely informing about the risks of smoking; they function as biopolitical devices that interpellate vulnerable subjects by mobilizing emotions, social norms, and control strategies. The study concludes that cigarette packaging operates as a discursive tool that moralizes consumption, repositioning tobacco as a socially problematized product.
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