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Publication details [#67744]

Harvey, Kevin. 2013. Medicalisation, pharmaceutical promotion and the Internet: A critical multimodal discourse analysis of hair loss websites. Social Semiotics 23 (5) : 691–714.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English

Annotation

This study conducts a critical multimodal discourse analysis of commercial hair loss websites. Specifically, the author focuses on eight sites which provide information about and promote the pharmaceutical hair loss treatment Propecia, a widely available medication marketed to treat male pattern baldness. The paper identifies four salient discursive strategies through which the websites depict male hair loss and the Propecia treatment, namely (1) representing the balding man as type and outcast, (2) promoting the attractiveness and self-assurance of the hirsute man, (3) situating male hair loss in a scientific discourse and (4) encouraging consumers to self-evaluate their hair loss. By inducing insecurities in men experiencing hair loss and encouraging them to embrace pharmaceutical remedies as a viable response to male pattern balding, these discursive-semiotic strategies help to reproduce the contemporary sociocultural practice of medicalisation, the phenomenon whereby the natural processes of life are treated as medical problems. The findings of this study suggest that these promotional discourses play a role in transforming ordinary, benign ailments into illnesses, reconfiguring them as treatable disorders for commercial gain.