Leslie Hogan
Frames, Facts and Fears: Questioning Whether News Media Perpetuated the Social Stigmas Surrounding the HIV/AIDS Epidemic
From the Black Death of the 14th century to the Spanish flu of the
20th, stories of the devastation wrought by disease epidemics linger as
reminders of the frailty of life and the power that illness has over man.
It comes as no surprise, then, that issues of health and well-being
maintain a strong presence in the media because of their continuing
significance in daily life. Following the unannounced discovery of HIV/AIDS
in the early 1980, news media ensured that HIV/AIDS would be the
health story of the decade, combining culture, religion, and celebrity
with medicine and relevance—not to mention its undeniable connection
to sexuality and taboo. Nearly thirty years later, the epidemic has un-
dergone a considerable amount of both print and broadcasting cover-
age, and has since proved to be one of the most highly reported diseases
of all time. The potential for media—be it news media or otherwise—to
both reflect and shape societal ideologies and perspectives raises con-
cern and investigation into the stereotypes of HIV/AIDS: has our un-
derstanding of HIV/AIDS been born from what we've read in the New
York Times? This study of print new media considers the frames of race,
gender, and language through which we've come to understand the
identity of HIV/AIDS.
