Beyond the Blues
Music in Antidepressant Medication Commercials
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21792569 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James Deaville (0000-0002-8876-6689, Carleton University), Chantal Lemire (University of Calgary) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 387-404 |
| Publication date | 2022-11-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-6458 • E-ISSN: 1757-6466 |
| Publisher | Liverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3828/jlcds.2022.31 |
| OpenAlex | W4315558631 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 37 |
The article examines the soundtracks of audiovisual commercials for antidepressants, investigating the musical practices of advertising for the pharmaceutical industry. After introducing the topic of direct-to-consumer medication advertising and its regulation in the United States through the concept of “fair balance,” the article considers the role of music in direct-to-consumer (DTC) commercials. The concepts of congruence and incongruence between visual, narrational, and musical elements are presented, in application to the soundtracks of antidepressant commercials, with detailed multimodal discourse analyses of commercials for the prescription medications Zoloft, Cymbalta, and Latuda. Studying their audiovisual narratives and elements leads to the conclusion that music serves as a crucial yet hidden suasive component in corporate campaigns that strategically target people who experience mental distress. To the extent that the commercials present normative states of mind and lifestyles as ideals for people with depression, they can be understood as coercive and as a result, subjects for critical unpacking through Mad studies, particularly in relation to their role in perpetuating sanist narratives and a biomedical model of mental health
Advertising · Aesthetics · Art · Blues · Cognitive dissonance · Literature · Mental distress · Mental health · Musical · Narrative · Normative · Political science · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Visual arts · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification · Management and Organizational Studies · Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare · Psychology · Social Psychology
The biomedical model of mental disorder
Narrative Magic and the Construction of Selfhood in Antidepressant Advertising
Negotiating What Constitutes Depression
I talked to my doctor
Pills Gone Wild
Mad matters
Mad’, Mad studies and advancing inclusive resistance
The (Surprising) Impact of Televised Antidepressant Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on the Stigmatization of Mental Illness
The Differential Role of Characteristics of Music on High- and Low- Involvement Consumers' Processing of Ads
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |