The structure of argumentation in health product messages

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of argumentation in direct-to-consumer health product ads in Newsweek that brings out special features of the arguments used in the ads, including practical reasoning, chained arguments, enthymemes, and prolepsis. A way to help overcome deficiencies in techniques of tailored health communication in consumer health informatics is shown by using argumentation schemes, argument visualisation tools, and dialogue models to frame these persuasive communication messages. The evidence collected is shown to be useful to allow the health informatics communicator and the person to whom message was directed to interact in a dialogue format where arguments can be put forward by both parties in a way that responds to the previous arguments and questions of the other party.Keywords: practical reasoning; argumentation schemes; Araucaria; persuasion dialogue; direct-to-consumer ads; consumer health informatics In this paper, some illustrative examples of direct-to-consumer health product advertisements are analysed using argumentation methods, and some conclusions about the analyses are drawn. The three main methods applied are argumentation schemes, argument visualisation, and dialogue structures that represent the context of use of an argument. The ads studied include commercials for pharmaceuticals, as well as ads for other medications, including health foods, and treatments and devices that purport to have health benefits. It is shown that they use arguments of a kind that fit structures of kinds known in argumentation studies, especially one particular argumentation scheme. The findings are interesting for many reasons. They can be applied both to the crafting of the ads and to the enhancement of critical thinking skills for intelligent consumers. They are also applicable to recent efforts to use computational techniques to assist consumer health informatics to inform consumers and improve health care.According to Kukafka (2005, p. 29), applying persuasive argumentation theories to consumer healthcare informatics for behavioural change has turned out to be a complex undertaking, because of the limitations of some of the tools used. The natural language generation systems used to provide explanation and advice to consumers have proved to have limitations and shortcomings. One problem is that they do not explore planning mechanisms that account for the generation of text consisting of multiple arguments. Another is that although they have attempted to improve the construction of persuasive argument through rhetorical structure theory, these attempts lack a theory of how persuasive arguments in health communication are put together in a coherent sequence. At the same time, the tailored approach to health communication, where the behavioural change strategy is intended to reach a specific person, although it is proving to be a successful method, clearly needs better argumentation tools that allow the health informatics communicator and the person to whom message was directed to interact in a dial...

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