Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 270 pages
- Published by: Baylor University Press October 1, 2007
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1932792899
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1932792898
-
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
- Weighs: 13.6 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The medical quackery of yore is commonly thought to be over. Sure, doctors may have prescribed mercury, arsenic and bloodletting in the 19th century, and they may not have washed their hands between examinations of cadavers and deliveries of babies, but aren't we more advanced now? Badaracco, professor of communications at Marquette, thinks not. The current symbiosis between medicine and media is the rival of any sort of Victorian-era medical malpractice. Big Pharm is the most profitable sector of the stock market, and pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much on marketing as they do on research and development. Badaracco shows that media, religion and medicine have been intertwined throughout American history, often producing spectacular innovations in marketing, a mess of broken bodies in medicine and frequent religious reactions against mainstream medicine, like Christian Science and the rise of popularity for Eastern religions. She writes with panache and passion enough to ask unsettling questions: if prayer
works, should it be required in hospitals by insurers? And if it works, might it also carry
risk? And why is the media so keen to serve as the mouthpiece for every scare tactic and miracle drug that comes down the pike?
(Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Review
Anyone who cares about health and healthcare in the United States will find Claire Hoertz Badaracco's analysis of the sometimes complementary, competitive, symbiotic, and synergistic relationships between and among medicine, the media, and religion fascinating. Prescribing Faith deserves to be widely read and discussed by students, academics, policymakers and practitioners in medicine, pharmacy, journalism, advertising, and public relations. --Judith M. Buddenbaum, Professor Emerita, Department of Journalism and Technical Communication, Colorado State University
In this hard-nosed analysis of medicine, religion, and mass media, Claire Badaracco explains the history behind today's wholesale promotion of anxiety over health. Prescribing Faith is an engaging study that holds out the hope that spirituality will serve as an antidote to relentless pharmaceutical marketing. --John P. Ferré, Professor of Communication, University of Louisville
This book is a landmark account of the construction and commodification of medicine and health. Along the way, its careful historical analysis provides fascinating insights into the way ideas of faith, health, and right living have become central features of contemporary media discourse, and what that means for media, medicine, and health. --Stewart M. Hoover, Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado<br /><br />In this hard-nosed analysis of medicine, religion, and mass media, Claire Badaracco explains the history behind today's wholesale promotion of anxiety over health.
Prescribing Faith is an engaging study that holds out the hope that spirituality will serve as an antidote to relentless pharmaceutical marketing. --John P. Ferré, Professor of Communication, University of Louisville<br /><br />Anyone who cares about health and healthcare in the United States will find Claire Hoertz Badaracco's analysis of the sometimes complementary, competitive, symbiotic, and synergistic relationships between and among medicine, the media, and religion fascinating.
Prescribing Faith deserves to be widely read and discussed by students, academics, policymakers and practitioners in medicine, pharmacy, journalism, advertising, and public relations. --Judith M. Buddenbaum, Professor Emerita, Department of Journalism and Technical Communication, Colorado State University
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