Beyond the Blues: Music in Antidepressant Medication Commercials

Abstract:The article examines the soundtracks of audiovisual commercials for antidepressants, investigating the musical practices of advertising for the pharmaceutical industry. After introducing the topic of direct-to-consumer medication advertising and its regulation in the United States through the concept of "fair balance," the article considers the role of music in direct-to-consumer (DTC) commercials. The concepts of congruence and incongruence between visual, narrational, and musical elements are presented, in application to the soundtracks of antidepressant commercials, with detailed multimodal discourse analyses of commercials for the prescription medications Zoloft, Cymbalta, and Latuda. Studying their audiovisual narratives and elements leads to the conclusion that music serves as a crucial yet hidden suasive component in corporate campaigns that strategically target people who experience mental distress. To the extent that the commercials present normative states of mind and lifestyles as ideals for people with depression, they can be understood as coercive and as a result, subjects for critical unpacking through Mad studies, particularly in relation to their role in perpetuating sanist narratives and a biomedical model of mental health.