Master's Thesis: rhetorical analysis of advertisements for prescription and non-prescription pain drugs.

We are surrounded by advertisements for pain drugs, and yet people who are in pain are often met with doubt when reporting their pain to others, including doctors, employers, and even friends. Despite a climate of doubt, advertisements for both prescription and non-prescription pain drugs tend to display seemingly unconditional belief in pain as a strategy to sell drugs to treat that pain. This thesis engages in a rhetorical analysis of advertisements for pain drugs, broadly defined, and their engagements with doubt in order to determine not just what these ads are saying about doubt, but also how they craft their claims.