Mary Clinkenbeard

Assistant Professor
Southern University and A&M College
Description of Work:
My research examines how large health corporations’ advertisements present notions of care that shape healthcare worker and patient relationships and identities. My current project examines a promotional video by Johnson & Johnson for a technology competition for nurses to address health issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign draws on the trope of a heroic, self-sacrificing wartime nurse to frame nursing care as an individual heroic act of technological innovation. The video further mobilizes the notion of the nurse-as-heroic-inventer to bolster its own corporate identity as a supporter and empowerer of nurses. The growing power of health corporations necessitates critical analysis of the ways that companies mobilize rhetorics of care to benefit their brand identities as well as their practices and products.