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How does the media influence people opitions and perceptions
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Direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs should be banned as it does not promote public health. I argue that the direct advertising of prescription drugs leave consumers confused and misinformed about medications. Prescription drug advertisers possess an intrinsic and threatening financial conflict of interest that results in an exaggeration of the positive and, in a very real way, the marginalization of the negative qualities of a product. Such advertising biasly promotes only the most expensive prescription drugs as it simultaneously encourages the sense that prescription drugs are gender and race based solutions needed for most everyday problems.
Despite advertisers goal of targeting the general public, the representation of characters in many ads are anything but diverse. In terms of gender, race, and class, the majority of characters in advertisements are white upper and middle class heterosexual Americans. In this way,
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In this way, instead of focusing on the underlying reason for depression pharmaceutical companies destroy individuality and create a demand for products that are suggested in accordance to the effectiveness of an ad rather than the patient's distinct medical need. In this logic, the rigid concept of separating consumer and health into two distinct categories manipulates consumers and steals time away from looking for the underlying cause of illness. This emphasis on cure rather than reason, supports the rapid consumption of new drugs that are no better, and sometimes even worse, than older or unadvertised generic drugs. Such a binary view of health into two separate and clear-cut groups restrict people from focusing on individual identity and thus their individual medical
In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs, the marketing behind pills, and the use of media outlets.
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of pharmaceuticals has grown increasingly in the past decade. The American public views prescription drug advertising for a wide range of medical conditions, including high cholesterol, depression, allergies, and erectile dysfunction. The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the content of these advertisements. Critics also have taken the position that the advertisements garner unearned trust from the public, are misleading, and promote unnecessary use of prescription drugs for common problems associated with aging. Proponents counter that DTC ads help eliminate stigmas associated with certain medical conditions, give patients an active role in their health care management, and encourages the doctor/patient relationship. There have been calls for bans on DTC pharmaceutical advertising, but the practice is protected under a business’s right to free speech. Regulation changes, particularly requiring the FDA to pre-approve marketing campaigns before they are released to the public, may be one way to appease opponents, while protecting the rights of pharmaceutical manufacturers to advertise to the average American consumer.
In America today, many people are in need of medical help. In fact,the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 75% of the population complain of physical problems (Federal Trade Commission 9). They complain, for example, of fatigue, colds, headaches, and countless other "ailments." When these symptoms strike, 65% purchase over-the counter, or OTC, drugs. In order to take advantage of this demand, five billion dollars is spent by the pharmaceutical industry on marketing each year . This marketing, usually in the form of advert...
Direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads are dangerous and can have serious effects on the health of the general public. In the article “Pros & Cons Arguments: ‘Should prescription drugs be advertised directly to consumers?’”, the pros and cons of the advertising of prescription drugs are compared. The negative aspects of these ads outweigh the positives. DTC prescription drug ads misinform patients, promote over-use, and pressure medical providers. The counter side argues that these ads inform patients, create a positive impact on patient compliance with medication, and cause patients to confront their doctors.
However, when a group of people other than whites who appear in an advertisement is primarily “appear in toke roles, limiting their own visibili...
Antidepressant usage has increased all around the world and is used by all ages. Doctors are prescribing more prescriptions, even if the patient does not need the medication. “Antidepressants prescriptions in the UK have increased by 9.6% in 2011, to 46 million prescriptions” (Are Antidepressants overused?). This study took place in the United Kingdom; however, a lot more prescriptions are being prescribed all around the world. The use of antidepressants is increasing to an all time high because doctors do not want to waste time talking about feelings. The psychologist’s just want the patients to feel better quickly so they prescribe antidepressants. Human beings as well as doctors think that prescribing medicat...
Americans have long since depended on a falsified ideology of idealized life referred to as the American dream. The construct of this dream has become more elusive with the emergence of popular cultural advertisements that sell items promoting a highly gendered goal of achieving perfection. In “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon states that ads are creating a “symbolic association between their products and what is most coveted by the consumer” to draw on the consumer’s desire to outwardly express high social standing (544). The American dream has sold the idea of equality between genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, but advertisements have manipulated this concept entirely through representations
American’s and people in general are an audience targeted for various commodities, advertising being a major contributor. The world of advertising has become a multiplex science, as mentioned in “What We Are to advertisers,” Twitchell divides consumers into 8 categories and Craig, in “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” concludes there are specific times of day for advertisements to be displayed to reach specific audiences. “Mass production means mass marketing, and mass marketing means the creation of mass stereotypes,” claims Twitchell. These stereotypes of men, women, and humans in general are how advertiser’s reach their targeted audiences.
Advertisers aim for an attractive advertisement depends on what audience they wanted to aim for. This is a way to make a good way of attracting people to make efficient money by using stereotypes, and psychologically
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
Termed as a ‘cash cow’, ADHD has generated the pharmaceutical industry profits of almost $40 million over a 5-year period (O’Meara, 2013). Drug companies have vastly increased investment within advertising, whilst celebrities known for ‘suffering’ with the same ‘illness’ are recruited into campaigns to raise ‘awareness’ of ADHD (Kage, 2006). According to Gerald (2010) incorporating celebrity usage is a technique to gain the consumer’s trust and demonstrate credibility to the company’s motives. Yet businesses are actually ‘disease mongering’ and inventing ‘illnesses’ which shape understanding and misleads the public into thinking they are unwell and need drugs to combat the effects. By using deceit to ply on people’s insecurities, companies are able to exploit vulnerability for financial gain (Moynihan et al, 2002). At the same time, company greed is highlighted by their belief that research is cost-ineffective and warrants less monies ploughed into that area (Maturo, 2011). Inevitably it is children that fair worse as, although their well-being is supposed to be safeguarded in law, it can be suggested that medication prescribed for ADHD puts children’s health at risk. The drugs used to treat ADHD have an abundance of side-effects. Ritalin, one of the most commonly used ADHD medication, is strongly
Advertising is the chief profitable industry in the United States today. Billboards, signs, magazines, newspapers, radios, televisions, and computers are just some of the places where advertisements are found. At the heart of any one company’s advertising campaign is the consumer. The consumer has complete control of their own money and can choose to buy any product or service they desire. Advertising does not control the consumers on what they buy. It only informs them on what they can buy. This is known as consumer sovereignty. It is the responsibility of the company to develop an advertising campaign that generates a demand for their product or service. A company usually promotes a product or service by means of appealing to a particular group in society. For example, an advertisement’s target audience could be men between the ages of 25 and 40 or children between the ages of 5 and 10. There are basic needs that all of us, as humans, share and the advertisement agencies incorporate them into their ads. The most dominant needs include sex, affiliation, nurture, guidance, aggression, achievement, dominance, prominence, and attention. An advertisement can appeal to one or more of these needs through the use of colors, words, expressions, and statures illustrated in the ad. A comparison of two advertisements for the same product, but different brand names, will allow one to better understand how a company uses different human needs to sell their product. Two coffee ads, one for Café Vienna and one for Millstone, will be compared to determine the dominant strategy that each uses to create a desire to buy. The ad for Café Vienna coffee uses the need for guidance to appeal to middle age coffee drinkers. In contrast, the need for achievement is what attracts middle age coffee drinkers to Millstone brand coffee.
Racism is a repulsive issue that is becoming more and more evident to the people living in America. It is not something that is taken lightly in society today, and it can be extremely offensive to many. Even though everyone reacts differently to it, it is important for all people to make an honest effort to respect others regardless of their racial and ethnic backgrounds. People must change their stereotypical thoughts about others and help decrease or end racism by addressing any issues in which racism is concerned. Results in response to different approaches to confront the situation have occurred, but it still remains very real within our world today. Although some changes have been seen, racism in advertising is still tremendously evident due to very weak, offensive comical attempts, the unawareness of advertisers, and the depiction of society’s ideal person.
Curry and Clarke’s article believe in a strategy called “visual literacy” which develops women and men’s roles in advertisements (1983: 365). Advertisements are considered a part of mass media and communications, which influence an audience and impact society as a whole. Audiences quickly begin to rely on messages sent through advertisements and can create ideologies of women and men. These messages not only are extremely persuasive, but they additionally are effective in product consumption in the media (Curry and Clarke 1983: