Visual Terror: A Warning Picture of the Adverse Effects of Smoking for Health on Cigarettes Package in Indonesia

Visual Terror is a threat to a person through the medium of photographs, drawings, and other imagery. Inciting terror visually is considered very effective because it matches the thought. Roland Barthes in his book The Photographic Message (1961) argues that the photograph is a reality that contains the denotative message. Denotative messaging is conveyed in a manner immediately grasped by the recipient without having to solve specific codes. This technique is used in Indonesia to deter smokers, using photographs depicting the adverse effects of smoking on cigarette packs. The photos are displayed on all cigarette packs manufactured in Indonesia, to ensure that smokers see the photo repeatedly to enhance the impact of visual terror techniques on the smoker’s subconscious. A smoker’s decision-making process in response to terror is presented in this article. It is possible for smokers to quit smoking abruptly, although it is difficult to do this consciously. One example of visual terror photos is depiction of a human mouth that suffered damage, in addition to the picture the packet displays health warnings and information about mouth cancer. In addition to the denoted message about cancer of the mouth, smokers absorb the connotative message that oral cancer is a dangerous disease caused by smoking, which, if not treated immediately will continue to grow and eat away parts of the body and even lead to death. The connotative message could inflict terror on the people who see it. It will continue, according to the experience and socio-cultural circumstances in which the person had been. Keywords: component, formatting, style, styling