A social history of psychotropic drug advertisements.
Psychotropic drug advertising for psychiatrists serves many purposes beyond its ostensible function of providing technical information. Medical advertising research has tended almost exclusively to use 'conspiratorial theory'--that is, they embrace the notion that one group (the advertisers) manipulates the other (the physicians). An examination of psychiatric journals from 1955 to 1980 shows the situation to be more complex. Such advertising seems to serve an orienting and therapeutic function for the physician, mirroring and supporting his professional identity or image. Such a view is in conformation with more recent research on nonmedical advertising.
Neill
J R
JR
Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington 40536-0080.
D000329:Advertising / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States
D011619:Psychotropic Drugs