Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

consumption, and start new cultural phenomena. This paper provides analysis and research on typical cases, and its
findings indicate a new representation of contemporary Chinese Media Culture. On the one hand, We media develop
the entertaining media culture. On the other hand, We media provide new cultural space in which people can
construct cultural identity.
10K
Cultures of Drug Use (Chair, Adrian Farrugia)
Roberta Pala
Vaccine Refusal and Governmental Responses
The prevalent understanding of vaccine refusal ascribes responsibility to vaccine objectors. The Australian
government’s “no jab no pay” policy penalises, among the unvaccinated, those who require family benefits
and locates conscientious objectors as the main source of vaccine refusal, ignoring other circumstances for
non-vaccination. An analysis of how this “evidence-based policy” problematises non-vaccination shows a
privileging of vaccine beliefs over the practical circumstances of non-vaccination. I highlight a crucial
discrepancy: while on one side the policy subordinates individual reluctance to the prerogatives of public
health, on the other hand it individualises the vaccine decisions of non-compliants as deviant. In this way it
demonises non-compliance instead of engaging with the conditions that inform it, in a pre-emptive
manoeuvre that works against creating engaged communities. The antagonistic state of the vaccine debate
precludes more practical and ethical engagements with difference.
Janelle Applequist
Fetishism
Disease Branding in Western Medicine: Advertising Discourse that Promotes Pharmaceutical
Prescription drug advertisements have become a popular aspect of consumer culture in the United States.
To provide a more in-depth look at the ways in which a prescription drug is advertised and produced, this
manuscript uses a case study approach, utilizing multivariate data, a political economy approach, critical
advertising studies, and textual analysis to deconstruct one especially noteworthy campaign, the
prescription-only contraceptive YAZ. “Disease mongering” and “disease branding” have become often-seen
components in Western medicine. A textual analysis of a YAZ advertisement that aired in 2010 will be
conducted to analyze the consumerist discourses present in Western health care. After this advertisement
aired in 2010, various health effects were found to be associated with the drug, including heart attack,
stroke, and blood clotting. As Bayer continued to fight the negative publicity surrounding the health
problems associated with taking YAZ, in 2011, they introduced a new drug, Beyaz. Beyaz is chemically
identical to YAZ, but has added Folic Acid (Vitamin B-9), making it legal to market the drug as a new formula.
Yet, Beyaz still contains the controversial synthetic progestin drospirenone (Emison, 2011). To date, if you
visit the website for YAZ, both YAZ and Beyaz are marketed together. This means that Bayer arguably rolled
out a nearly identical birth control pill, simply giving it a new name for consumers to associate with more
positively, but carrying with it all the same side effects found previously with YAZ (Emison, 2011).
Additionally, the ad presents Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) as a serious ailment needing to be
addressed. In this sense, it can be argued that PMDD, already classified as a form of disease mongering or
disease branding, is continuing to be portrayed to consumers as a more serious, more severe condition that
requires individual intervention. The pharmaceutical ideology that puts profit above patient understanding
further perpetuates a system of self-diagnosis, as can be seen via the example of PMDD in the YAZ
advertisement, where a message is distributed that celebrates the commodity while seamlessly appearing to
put decisions about health into the hands of consumers. YAZ serves as an example of pharmaceutical
fetishism, seen mostly through its branding associated with feminist empowerment, which celebrates the
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