Holy pharma! : healthism discourses in a pharmaceutical advertising website : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

Modern changes in the public health philosophy and government legislation reflect a desire of health for all.The changes support a new health ism ideology that controls the experience and definition of health .Scholars parallel the function of healthism to that of a religion that meets the needs of a modern secular culture.Thi s study examines a pha1111aceutical advertising website, taking a soc ial constructionist stance to investigate dominant representations of health ism and any para llels to the values and practices of Western religion.The website se lected is published by a pha1111aceutical marketing group that has been disseminating health and product info1mation for 10 yea rs.The installment of March-April 2009 was examined in its entirety.A critical di sco urse analytic approach draw ing on Durkheim and Foucault was adopted to analyse texts, images, and videos.Pa11icular attention was given to the similarities and differences of health ism and religion in terms, meanings, subject posi tioning and function.Results show healthism to parallel religi o n in its construction as infonnation, instruction and ritual practice.The expe11 discourse within healthism promotes a morality that parallels and deviates from religious values with a turn toward the value of the self.This expe11 discourse infonns healthism discourses, constructing a doctrine of unquestionable behaviours that legitimate rituali zed health practices.When viewed as an integral entity, the fo1111, content, and function of health ism in pha1maceutical advertising takes on the religious connectivity of values, beliefs and practices that underlies all social life.The website is an intense concentration of coercive and symbolic power to inform the institutionalized social system of health ism .II lll