The stories we sell: A narrative analysis of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising\r\n

This dissertation focuses on the issue of direct-to-consumer (DTC) television advertising for prescription drugs. First, it explores the terms and categories currently used to understand and debate this issue. Then, it draws from the traditions of history, hermeneutic philosophy, interpretive anthropology, visual studies, and the ethical criticism of literature to develop and advocate an alternative paradigm for thinking about pharmaceutical marketing. The project involves a theoretical exploration of an interpretive, and specifically narrative, approach to drug commercials, as well as a demonstration of this approach in three analytical chapters, each dedicated to a single advertisement. \r\nThe methods used in this dissertation are those of humanities scholarship, and include careful and comparative reading, rigorous linguistic interpretation, philosophical investigation, and narrative analysis. By bringing these scholastic approaches to bear on the issue of DTC advertising, this project offers a novel perspective from which to consider issues in health policy, one which allows and encourages an active, participatory stance on the part of patients and the public as a whole. This kind of critical, interpretive reframing of pharmaceutical advertising not only divests the industry of the free-market rhetoric upon which it relies to justify its marketing practices, it also directs public discourse towards a careful examination of the suggested narratives conveyed by these commercials. Ultimately, this narrative paradigm highlights the extent to which individuals are free to rigorously evaluate, and then deliberately accept, reject, or retell the stories told by drug companies about health, illness, and American medicine.\r\n

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Grantor

The University of Texas Medical Branch

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Angela Lea Scott

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anne Hudson Jones, Ph.D.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Therese Jones, Ph.D.
• Ronald A. Carson, Ph.D.
• Michele Carter, Ph.D.
• Harold Vanderpool, Ph.D.
• Frederick H. Huang, M.D.

• pharmaceutical advertising
• narrative ethics
• medical humanities
• literature and medicine
• hermeneutic philosophy
• advertising ethics

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the TDL web site by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Dc Identifier Other

etd-06142007-152421

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utmb-ir.tdl.org:2152.3/118