What do people see? This answer to this question is very difficult to answer because what people see may not be what people actually want to see or what they were supposed to see. The visual world around individuals is tinkered with by the individuals who sit at the top of the social pyramid. The marketing strategies that are implemented by the individuals at the top are responsible for are changing the visual world around the common man. Ethan Watters in his essay “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” discusses the attempt by pharmaceutical corporations to effectively market and distribute their antidepressants amongst the Japanese population who have a different perspective on depression. John Berger’s essay “Ways of Seeing” discusses
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The marketers are using the resources around the environment that the Japanese exist in, to their advantage. Mystification acts in the idea that“The art makes inequality seem noble and hierarchies seem thrilling” (Berger 68). When individuals at the top of the societal pyramid continue to hold such a significant influence over how the environment of the individuals at the lower end of the societal pyramid exist in, they can influence the reality that exists in the eyes of the people. The individuals at the top can use individuals who they know will change the way that the Japanese common man will think. A Japanese psychiatrist “was quoted in a local newspaper describing SSRIs as “‘Drugs that can transform minus thinking into plus thinking”’ (Watters 526). The marketers knew that the Japanese would value what a respected individual thought about the drugs that the pharmaceutical companies were trying to sell. The marketers with their strategies magnify the voice of these individuals. This Japanese psychiatrist’s words of describing the drugs as something that changes thinking are used by the marketers to promote their product. Their words are translated into portraying a message to the common people that the marketers want to send. When the marketers used the case of Princess Masako they used another psychiatrist to their advantage since “Princess Masako’s personal psychiatrist was one other than Yutaka Ono, one of the field’s leaders that GlaxoSmithKline had feted at the Kyoto conference in 2001” (Watters 526). This is why the conferences that are held are necessary for the drug makers because this is where they can create these connections to influence the environment of the vulnerable common people. The marketers also used the “high suicide rates” (Watters 526) in the environment of the Japanese people to their advantage. The
The marketers are using the resources around the environment that the Japanese exist in, to their advantage. Mystification acts in the idea that“The art makes inequality seem noble and hierarchies seem thrilling” (Berger 68). When individuals at the top of the societal pyramid continue to hold such a significant influence over how the environment of the individuals at the lower end of the societal pyramid exist in, they can influence the reality that exists in the eyes of the people. The individuals at the top can use individuals who they know will change the way that the Japanese common man will think. A Japanese psychiatrist “was quoted in a local newspaper describing SSRIs as “‘Drugs that can transform minus thinking into plus thinking”’ (Watters 526). The marketers knew that the Japanese would value what a respected individual thought about the drugs that the pharmaceutical companies were trying to sell. The marketers with their strategies magnify the voice of these individuals. This Japanese psychiatrist’s words of describing the drugs as something that changes thinking are used by the marketers to promote their product. Their words are translated into portraying a message to the common people that the marketers want to send. When the marketers used the case of Princess Masako they used another psychiatrist to their advantage since “Princess Masako’s personal psychiatrist was one other than Yutaka Ono, one of the field’s leaders that GlaxoSmithKline had feted at the Kyoto conference in 2001” (Watters 526). This is why the conferences that are held are necessary for the drug makers because this is where they can create these connections to influence the environment of the vulnerable common people. The marketers also used the “high suicide rates” (Watters 526) in the environment of the Japanese people to their advantage. The