Americans adoption of the Internet has spawned the increased usage of this medium for direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical manufacturers, despite the widespread controversy over the ethics of the practice, the educational value of direct-to-consumer advertising, and the ultimate cost of the practices to the public. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the industrys advertising within traditional media, the agency does not yet impose standards for direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medications on the Internet. This content analysis of the visual and textual cues of 100 direct-to-consumer Web sites for prescription medications identifies the unexpected strong presence of gain frames relative to loss frames, as well as the manufacturers focus on educating consumers, evident within the Web sites considerable utilization of informational advertising appeals and informational rewards. Possibly, the Internets ability to support rich media and the virtually unlimited space on the Web sites encourages these manufacturers to employ informational appeals and offer a variety of informational rewards. While the data reveal the manufacturers strong usage of interactive elements, the industry can improve by fully utilizing the features of the Internet to truly benefit patients as an information source, while attracting prospective consumers. While several shortcomings are evident, including the infrequent usage of minority actors within the advertisements, the pharmaceutical industry appears to have effectively regulated itself through applying the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations direct-to-consumer advertising standards for traditional media to the World Wide Web. Implications of these findings for the pharmaceutical industry and the public are discussed, in addition to the studys impact on future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-05302008-182755 |
| Date | 02 June 2008 |
| Creators | Harrington, Brooke Alayne |
| Contributors | Andrea Miller, Louis Day, Anne Osborne |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-05302008-182755/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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