Marketing disease: A sociological account of prescription medication advertisements.

摘要

Today's popular media are overwhelmed with images of disease; media which are highly influential in the reflexive, social processes through which we form our self-identities. Direct-to-consumer advertisements of prescription medications are commodifying the diseases which they claim to treat. The purpose of this paper is to expose those techniques utilized by the pharmaceutical industry to sell their products, through a semiotic analysis of print advertisements for prescription medications. A brief history of direct-to-consumer advertising of medications is first provided, followed by a theoretical framework for the subsequent analysis. A review of semiotics then follows, with a description of the sample used and the methods employed in this analysis.; The sample used was quite large; therefore a representative sample of five advertisements was selected for closer analysis. The semiotic analysis revealed that the prominent signs in the advertisements signified disease and symptoms. A summary of the analysis of the five advertisements is given, as well as an explanation of the significance of conducting research on advertisements and popular media.