Pro- and Anti-Tax Framing in News Articles About California Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax Campaigns from 2014-2018

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) contribute to illness, especially among marginalized communities and children targeted by the beverage industry.SSB taxes can reduce consumption, illness burden, and health inequities, while generating revenue for health programs, and as one way to hold the industry responsible for their harmful products and marketing malpractices.Supporters and opponents have debated SSB tax proposals in news coverage -a key source of information that helps to shape public policy debates.To learn how four successful California-based SSB tax campaigns were covered in the news, we conducted a content analysis, comparing how SSB taxes were portrayed.We found that pro-tax arguments frequently reported data to expose the beverage industry's outsized campaign spending and emphasize the health harms of SSBs, often from health professionals.However, pro-tax arguments rarely described the benefits of SSB taxes, or how they can act as a tool for industry accountability.By contrast, anti-tax arguments overtly appealed to values and promoted misinformation, often from representatives from industry-funded front groups.As experts recommend additional SSB tax proposals, and as the industry mounts legislative counter-tactics to prevent them, advocates should consider harnessing community representatives as messengers and values-based messages to highlight the benefits of SSB taxes.Sugar-sweetened beverages are the largest source of added sugar in the American diet and contribute to higher risks of diet-related diseases such as diabetes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022).SSBs are affordable and more readily available in vending machines, fast food establishments, and supermarkets than healthier options (Rehm, Matte, Van Wye, Young, & Frieden, 2008).SSBs maintain their popularity through the beverage industry's aggressive marketing, supported by enormous budgets (Wood et al., 2021).Evidence shows that the industry intentionally targets communities of color (Dowling, Roberts, Adjoian, Farley, & Dannefer, 2020) -including children and youth (Powell, Hearris, & Fox, 2013) -and profits from unregulated, racialized marketing practices (Barnhill et al., 2022).These unchecked practices worsen health outcomes, especially for lower-income communities and communities of color (Roesler, Rojas, & Falbe, 2021).Several studies have established the link between added sugars and diet-related diseases, and many experts recommend the use of excise taxes on SSBs to reduce consumption and generate revenue for health programs (Brownell et al., 2009;Malik & Hu, 2022).Multiple states and localities across the U.S. have attempted -and failed -to pass SSB taxes between 2008 and 2014.These campaigns shed light on the beverage industry's aggressive lobbying and tactics to oppose SSB taxes.The industry has protected its interests by using the media to undermine science (Du, Tugendhaft, Erzse, & Hofman, 2018) and to portray itself as an advocate for social and racial justice by funding front groups that create the appearance of community-based public opposition (Berkeley Media Studies Group, 2007;Nixon, Mejia, Cheyne, & Dorfman, 2015).Between 2014 and 2018, four California cities (Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and Albany) led successful campaigns to impose excise taxes on SSBs to improve public health and hold the beverage industry responsible for their contributions to health inequities (Madsen, 2020).These taxes, levied on SSB distributors, aim to reduce disease risk and raise revenue for local government programs that support the health of their population.We now know that the revenue generated from these taxes has been allocated for health and social initiatives, including universal pre-kindergarten, job training, healthy food access, and emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic