Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19963

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Emmett M
Pills, pedlars, profits and power
Media Information Australia 1992 Aug; (65):36-42
http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=136865841695634;res=IELLCC

Abstract:

Abstract: This article examines pharmaceutical advertisements found in five Australian medical journals, published over a period of ten years (1978-88). The advertisements studied are located in professional journals distributed free of charge, or as part of an association subscription, to a limited audience of doctors or health professionals. The central questions asked include: how advertisements construct ‘reality’; how ideology and meaning are produced within the advertising discourse; and how gender and subject are constructed in this process. The aim is to examine the phenomenon of advertising and its practices; and to deconstruct elements of functioning capitalism, its ideological constructs and the hegemonic practices of powerful professionals and profit-making transnationals.