Mass Media and Stigmatization
- Mar 8, 2022
- 2 min read
Media misrepresentation of mental illness goes beyond misdiagnosis
To dig further into the harmful effects of ID stigmatizing, I chose to analyze a popular ad campaign from 2009 featuring an ADHD medication, intuniv. This ad campaign was so popular and successful for the pharmaceutical business, in fact, that two specific magazine ads were given the Silver MM+M Award for best overall professional print campaign, citing the ad was responsible for an uptick in sales for 2009 and 2010 respectively. The provided YouTube video explains how the pharmaceutical business capitalizes on stigma and fear for the sake of profit.
The advertisements primarily focus on a disruptive and angry green monster, later revealed to be a child with ADHD. When the child takes the medication, however, they easily take off the monster head as if it were a costume and go about their day in a calmer and milder manner. Words like “disruptive” and phrases like “but there’s a great kid in there” sell an ideal to the target audience, namely the parents of children experiencing the listed symptoms, by playing on fear. That is to say, portraying a young child as an occasional rambunctious monster who parents still love despite their behavior touches upon an already existing narrative or understanding of the difficulties of parenthood. Where this becomes potentially detrimental is in whether or not their child truly has ADHD. Ultimately, the diagnosis becomes irrelevant; the ad only aims to sell the experience of convenience for the parent and, thus, the pill and its continued use.
Ads sell lifestyles, ideologies, capitalism and consumerism itself, and with respect to medical advertising, science, medication, and institutions become the products. The visual culture behind science marketing is deeply ingrained in science, culture, and politics. By using a monster as their character, the intuniv advertisers display the consumer as subjects in need of chemical modification and/or someone existing outside “the norm” of everyday life. Not only can this be harmful to the mental health of a child with ADHD, this can also create a harmful cultural view of ADHD as a mental illness in that, statistically, misdiagnosis and medication abuse become common practice, and thus make acquiring drugs more complicated. After all, as shown in these two ads, the benefits of the drug vastly outweigh the risks. The side effects are listed in small, hard to read text at the bottom of the page, and can be misleading and deceptive in that not all risks are mentioned and alternative medications and/or treatments are not provided. By placing emphasis on the promise of “magical transformation” postreatment, the advertisers risk endangering the consumer and leading them into a false sense of security.
Sources:
Mirzoeff, N. (2016). How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More (Illustrated ed.). Basic Books.
Sturken, M. (2022). Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture by Marita Sturken Lisa Cartwright 2 edition (Textbook ONLY, Paperback ). Oxford University Press.
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