mass-communication-theory

32 Section 1 Introduction to Mass Communication Theory
THINKING
about
THEORY
Administration’s Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising,
and Communication, surveyed doctors. Although
a majority of physicians still preferred to be the sole
source of drug information for their patients, 37 percent
said that DTCA had a “somewhat positive” effect
on their patients and practices, 3 percent said a
“very positive” effect, 28 percent said no effect, and
27 percent said a “somewhat negative” effect (in
Thomaselli, 2003).
But, argue many medical and mass communication
researchers, there are important critical questions
about this $5 billion-a-year-practice that
deserve attention. One might be, “What happens to
a society that routinely medicalizes aspects of ordinary
life?” For example, excess weight, thinning hair,
heartburn, and diminished sex drive, all natural
aspects of aging, are now “diseases” treatable by
well-advertised prescription drugs. Counseling researcher
Lawrence Rubin has labeled this phenomenon
commodifying mental illness, when the ailments
to be alleviated are the “very common problems of
shyness, sadness, nervousness, malaise, and even
suspicion” because the “boundaries between discomforts
of daily living and psychiatric symptomatology”
are blurred “to the point that both can be
equally and efficiently remedied through massmarketed
products” (Rubin, 2004, pp. 369–370).
Another set of critical questions revolves around the
issue of what kind of health system is produced when
DTCA is allowed to operate. Critics contend that it
distorts—even perverts—the entire health care system
by obfuscating the definition of disease itself. As medical
technology writer Thomas Goetz explained, for patients,
“disease puts a name to an affliction”; for
doctors, “disease identifies why people are sick and
suggests a course of treatment”; for medical researchers,
“disease fixes an area of investigation, a mystery to
be studied in the hopes of finding a cause or, perhaps,
a cure”; for the pharmaceutical industry, disease is “a
business model. Disease offers an opportunity to develop
and market drugs that help people get better
and, along the way, help companies make money”
(2006, pp. 152–155).
DTCA further disrupts health care, say critics, because
it frees our society from the need to find political
solutions to ongoing health problems. “Where
ADMINISTRATIVE VERSUS CRITICAL RESEARCH: THE EXAMPLE OF
PRESCRIPTION DRUG ADVERTISING (CONTINUED)
individualized solutions become prevalent, societal,
population-based interventions tend to fall away, and
the result is worsening health inequalities,” wrote physician
Iona Heath. Further disrupting the effective maintenance
of public health, she argues, is the fact that
population-based intervention favours the poor
because such interventions are applied universally
and the poor are the most at-risk; individually
based interventions favour the rich because
they are more likely to make use of what is offered….
The huge amount of money that can be
made from preventative technologies has diminished
the economic importance of treatment
technologies…. This has meant a shift of attention
from the sick to the well and from the poor
to the rich. (2006, p. e146)
In other words, there is little need for school or
government intervention in America’s worsening
childhood obesity problem because kids can simply
take a pill for “metabolic syndrome,” what we used to
call “being overweight.” As for other “ailments” treatable
by heavily advertised prescription drugs, rest
and diet can often alleviate many of the problems
associated with RLS (restless leg syndrome), PMDD
(premenstrual dysphoric disorder), FSD (female
sexual dysfunction), acid reflux disease, and erectile
dysfunction. Alterations in school curricula to stress
interpersonal communication and public speaking
skills can often reduce the number of sufferers of
SAD (social anxiety disorder) and GAD (generalized
anxiety disorder).
Were you aware of the kinds of administrative and
critical questions that are being asked about DTCA?
Which set of questions do you think has received
more research attention? Do administrative research
questions tend to dominate because they are more
manageable, more likely to be answered by traditional
postpositivist research, more likely to find financial
support, less threatening to the status quo? Can
you think of other reasons? What do we as a people
lose when critical questions are not asked and therefore
are not investigated?
critical research Asking important questions about what kind
of culture results from our media use
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