Teaser! …more to come…
Western Media Framing HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Discourse Analysis
Victor A. Massaquoi, PHD Fellow (Candidate)
Since the emergence of HIV and AIDS, 26 years ago, the media have been, and continue to be at the core of framing and reporting on the biomedical, socio-economic and political discourses surrounding the origin, nature, scope, treatment and other socio-medical consequences of the disease. The major reasons for this critical role of the media are historical and sociological.
Since 1981, the technologically sophisticated West has been struggling to develop the "magic bullet" drug (workable remedy) that would treat the deadly disease. Consequently, with the unsuccessful (scientist still exploring) focus on the biomedical approach, so far, by certain countries, victims or patients (semantic depends on one’s socio-political view of HIV/AIDS) have to rely on the media (TV, newspaper, radio, website etc.)--major players in education, information, entertainment, and other forms of community outreach.
The work of the media, though challenged (citations in footnotes), has led to policy suggestions (in some cases, change), modifications and intense outreach campaigns, at the national and international levels. For example, the Reagan Administration did not respond to HIV/AIDS until it appeared in the New York Times, two years after its advent, in 1981. The premise of the present approach is that if people are educated about the nature, causes and sociomedical effects of the disease, human sexual behavior might change, and its spread mitigated. Unfortunately, Western framing of HIV/AIDS varies hugely and contested widely as depicted in the countless challenges to the veracity of the content of some HIV/AIDS stories, and the negativity of language, questionable description, and skewed statistical “facts” used to justify certain claims in Western media.
The purpose of this research analysis is to examine how Africa is being framed and discussed in prominent Western news outlets (New York Times, BBC, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, etc.) within the context of HIV/AIDS. The rationale for choosing these news outlets is based on the fact that the first official reporting of HIV/AIDS was in the San Francisco Chronicle, in 1981, and ever since, the newspaper has been reporting on HIV AIDS from different perspectives. Other electronic media mentioned above have done some analyses in the last 20 years.
I’ll be using Van Dijk’s theoretical discourse analysis to help frame this work. Discourse Analysis is the…did I wet your appetite?
Other Academic Projects in the Works (target dates: late 2008 and 2009):
Western Media Framing HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Discourse Analysis
Victor A. Massaquoi, PHD Fellow (Candidate)
Since the emergence of HIV and AIDS, 26 years ago, the media have been, and continue to be at the core of framing and reporting on the biomedical, socio-economic and political discourses surrounding the origin, nature, scope, treatment and other socio-medical consequences of the disease. The major reasons for this critical role of the media are historical and sociological.
Since 1981, the technologically sophisticated West has been struggling to develop the "magic bullet" drug (workable remedy) that would treat the deadly disease. Consequently, with the unsuccessful (scientist still exploring) focus on the biomedical approach, so far, by certain countries, victims or patients (semantic depends on one’s socio-political view of HIV/AIDS) have to rely on the media (TV, newspaper, radio, website etc.)--major players in education, information, entertainment, and other forms of community outreach.
The work of the media, though challenged (citations in footnotes), has led to policy suggestions (in some cases, change), modifications and intense outreach campaigns, at the national and international levels. For example, the Reagan Administration did not respond to HIV/AIDS until it appeared in the New York Times, two years after its advent, in 1981. The premise of the present approach is that if people are educated about the nature, causes and sociomedical effects of the disease, human sexual behavior might change, and its spread mitigated. Unfortunately, Western framing of HIV/AIDS varies hugely and contested widely as depicted in the countless challenges to the veracity of the content of some HIV/AIDS stories, and the negativity of language, questionable description, and skewed statistical “facts” used to justify certain claims in Western media.
The purpose of this research analysis is to examine how Africa is being framed and discussed in prominent Western news outlets (New York Times, BBC, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, etc.) within the context of HIV/AIDS. The rationale for choosing these news outlets is based on the fact that the first official reporting of HIV/AIDS was in the San Francisco Chronicle, in 1981, and ever since, the newspaper has been reporting on HIV AIDS from different perspectives. Other electronic media mentioned above have done some analyses in the last 20 years.
I’ll be using Van Dijk’s theoretical discourse analysis to help frame this work. Discourse Analysis is the…did I wet your appetite?
Other Academic Projects in the Works (target dates: late 2008 and 2009):
- "A Historical Dictionary of Sierra Leonean Women" (By Victor Massaquoi and Sylvester Lamin).
- "Living in the Other World" (By Sylvester Lamin and Victor Massaquoi). This would be a detailed sociocultural, economic and political analysis of immigrants in the US spanning 30 years.
- My Dissertation. Is a detailed analysis and theory contribution to the social development communication theory of participatory development communication in "Third World".
- "Globalization and its Socioeconomic and Politcal Impact: A Comparative Case Study of The Gambia, Ghana and Sierra Leone" (By Victor Massaquoi).
- Lastly, the voluntary work of Tegloma. Some people will be shocked when we report our successes in New Jersey and Chicago, next year.
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