Biopolitics, Biopower and Selfcare in Anti-Smoking Campaign on Cigarette Packs

We use the theory of the Discourse Analysis, mobilizing Foucaultian concepts/notions of subject, governmentality, biopower, biopolitics and selfcare as analytical categories. Methodologically, our analysis has a qualitative approach with a descriptive and interpretative nature and draws on a corpus consisting of nine of the statements above. We conclude that the anti-smoking campaigns intersect medical, legal and aesthetic discourses, which indicate ways of taking care of oneself while also allowing a glimpse at a power that aims to manage people's lives with the ultimate goal of making them more productive and less costly to the State.