Sad Cases and Success Stories: Representations of Multiple Sclerosis in Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising

Ella Houston ()
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Ella Houston: Centre for Culture & Disability Studies, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool L16 9JD, UK

Societies, 2023, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: This article examines representations of multiple sclerosis in direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements televised during 2021 in the United States. Drawing on and developing Cultural Disability Studies theory, it highlights how advertising produced by pharmaceutical companies influences mass understandings, as well as personal experiences of, multiple sclerosis. The application of textual analysis to a small-sample of direct-to-consumer advertisements that promote drug therapies for multiple sclerosis (n. 4) uncovers the prevalence of profit-driven, rather than person-driven, medical neoliberal ideologies. On first impressions, the advertisements appear to challenge the metanarrative of multiple sclerosis as a life-limiting tragedy. However, the research findings reveal that multiple sclerosis is framed as the “hidden enemy” of the American dream, supposedly threatening individuals’ abilities to live productive and meaningful lives, while the consumption of pharmaceutical “wonder” drugs is treated as an act of self-empowerment.

Keywords: multiple sclerosis; direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising; metanarratives; representations; Cultural Disability Studies; popular culture; neoliberalism; medical neoliberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:13:y:2023:i:7:p:158-:d:1186106

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