Smoking in Indonesia is not only a public health issue but also a cultural practice that may be associated with masculine identity. This study focuses specifically on one finding from a broader study of anti-masculinity in anti-smoking campaign posters: the rejection of the idea that smoking can be part of a responsible masculine identity. The study employs a descriptive qualitative approach and Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic model of representamen, object, and interpretant. Six posters published on the Instagram account @suara_tanpa_rokok were selected because they explicitly or implicitly connect smoking with responsibility toward the self, family, and public environment. The analysis shows that the campaign deconstructs masculine responsibility by presenting smoking as inconsistent with self-care, family protection, social consideration, and behavioral control. The posters reconstruct responsibility as the ability to protect health, prevent secondhand exposure, respect smoke-free spaces, and maintain one’s capacity to perform family and social roles. The finding contributes to communication and gender studies by showing how a health campaign can negotiate masculine identity through visual and verbal signs rather than merely conveying biomedical risk information.
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