Signs, Things and Packaging: Recovering the Material Agency of the Cigarette Packet

TY - JOUR

T1 - Signs, Things and Packaging

T2 - Recovering the Material Agency of the Cigarette Packet

AU - Bell, Kirsten

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - In recent years, cigarette packets have become the site of considerable legislative attention via initiatives to remove industry branding from tobacco products, based on the premise that branded cigarette packaging acts as a ‘silent salesman’ for smoking. According to this perspective, the cigarette packet has a particular sort of agency, but one rooted in its communicative powers rather than its material qualities. In this paper I reconsider this view, based on an analysis of archives in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library produced by a search of the term ‘packet design’, and scholarship on containerization. Taking up the idea of containers as undertheorized forms of materiality, I argue that the cigarette packet is best conceptualized as a technology with powerful, albeit largely invisible, physical consequences on the circulation of cigarettes and the practice of smoking itself.© 2019, The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper published in SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

AB - In recent years, cigarette packets have become the site of considerable legislative attention via initiatives to remove industry branding from tobacco products, based on the premise that branded cigarette packaging acts as a ‘silent salesman’ for smoking. According to this perspective, the cigarette packet has a particular sort of agency, but one rooted in its communicative powers rather than its material qualities. In this paper I reconsider this view, based on an analysis of archives in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library produced by a search of the term ‘packet design’, and scholarship on containerization. Taking up the idea of containers as undertheorized forms of materiality, I argue that the cigarette packet is best conceptualized as a technology with powerful, albeit largely invisible, physical consequences on the circulation of cigarettes and the practice of smoking itself.© 2019, The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper published in SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

KW - cigarettes

KW - containerization

KW - materiality

KW - packaging

KW - smoking

KW - standardization

KW - technology

UR - https://roehampton.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/2b35de33-1c41-4cd4-9a04-2804b77cd036

U2 - 10.1177/0306312719876995

DO - 10.1177/0306312719876995

M3 - Article

SN - 1460-3659

VL - 50

SP - 30

EP - 49

JO - Social Studies of Science

JF - Social Studies of Science

IS - 1

ER -