Jana Declercq

In the land of pharma : a qualitative analysis of the reputational discourse of the pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry has been battling a negative reputation and has been confronted with accusations such as putting profits before patients and manipulating clinical trial results. In this study, we focus on how pharmaceutical companies address what we define as the Bad Pharma discourse. Drawing on interviews, press releases, corporate documentation and ethnographic fieldwork, we analyse the main themes that are used by the Belgian pharmaceutical industry to construct its reputational discourse, and we focus on how this discourse is shaped by the Bad Pharma discourse. Our results illustrate that on the one hand, the industry contests the Bad Pharma discourse by generating an alternative discourse. On the other hand, they also partly embrace and reframe this Bad Pharma discourse. This way, current societal debates are entextualised in the reputational discourses of the pharmaceutical industry.

The produsing expert consumer: Co-constructing, resisting and accepting health-related claims on social media in response to an infotainment show about food:

This article examines the Twitter and Facebook uptake of health messages from an infotainment TV show on food, as broadcasted on Belgium’s Dutch-language public broadcaster. The interest in and amount of health-related media coverage is rising, and this media coverage is an important source of information for laypeople, and impacts their health behaviours and therapy compliance. However, the role of the audience has also changed; consumers of media content increasingly are produsers, and, in the case of health, expert consumers. To explore how current audiences react to health claims, we have conducted a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Twitter and Facebook reactions to an infotainment show about food and nutrition. We examine (1) to which elements in the show the audience reacts, to gain insight in the traction the nutrition-related content generates and (2) whether audience members are accepting or resisting the health information in the show. Our findings show that the information on health and production elicit the most reactions, and that health information incites a lot of refutation, low acceptance and a lot of suggestions on new information or new angles to complement the show’s information.

Examining “Elite” Power Dynamics in Informant–Research Relations and Its Impact on Ethnographic Data Construction

This article explores how power dynamics between informants and field researchers shape ethnographic data construction, drawing on fieldwork at a pharmaceutical company. Pharmaceutical companies are considered elite settings, and often assumed to be powerful in relation to the researcher and dominating the data construction. However, such a view conceptualizes power in terms of fixed categories, in which there is a superior and subordinate position. We reconsider the impact of elite informants in the light of a constructivist, interactionist view on power, in which power is dynamic and not necessarily entailing domination. We answer the following research questions: (1) How can we observe power dynamics, as conceptualized in a constructionist and interaction orientation, in ethnographic research? and (2) How can we reflect on what these power dynamics mean for data construction, based on our experiences in elite settings? To do so, we make use of discursive and interactional analytic methods and propose three levels of analysis: (1) the level of conversation, (2) the level of ethnography, and (3) the level of the organization in society. They respectively shed light on power in relation to (1) what is said and how, (2) the meanings attached to the ethnographic events, and (3) the meaning of the ethnography in relation to the discourses on the organization in society. With this article, we aim to provide researchers with a methodological tool to approach and to reflect on the significance of power relations in the context of ethnography and interviewing and its impact on data construction.