Fear as an Advertising Tactic

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, although there have been many concerns about the sheer volume of advertising in all forms of media from as long as it has been in existence, the relatively new and growing trend of using health-related fears to sell products is particularly alarming. It looks at how it is this trend that Benjamin Radford mentions in his book, "Media Mythmakers", that actually ?threatens? to manipulate consumers to the detriment of society as a whole.

From the Paper:

"Take, for example, the exploding market for "ADHD" medications. ADHD, short for ?attention deficit, hyper-activity disorder,? is a fairly new ?disorder,? that is being labeled onto the nation's children at an alarming rate. Although many consider ADHD to be an authentic disorder in children, the sudden jump in "diagnosis" in the school-aged population gives one pause. According to people like Radford, the magnitude of this jump is due, not to a real health crisis, but as a response to the fear-based advertising that pharmaceutical companies are pushing on consumers on an increasingly wide scale."

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