Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in men's and women's magazines

The topic of this thesis is pharmaceutical advertising in women’s and men’s magazines. The research measures the rate at which pharmaceutical advertisements for prescription drugs are promoted and to whom. The research also measures the frequency of doctor, rational, positive, and negative appeal strategies in women’s and men’s magazines. Data analysis suggests women’s magazines have more prescription drug advertisements than men’s magazines, there are a higher number of prescription drug advertisements urging people to ask their doctors for certain medications than there are prescription drug advertisements not urging people to ask their doctors for certain medications, magazines targeted at women have more pharmaceutical advertisements with positive emotional appeals than do magazines targeted at men, there is no difference between the number of DTC pharmaceutical advertisements in magazines from 1997/1999 to 2001/2005, the majority of prescription drug advertisements aimed at men and women utilize more than one page.