Media Coverage of HIV/AIDS in Australia - Report Example

News and Current Affairs: Media Coverage of HIV/AIDS in Australia Name Course Tutor’s Name Date Introduction HIV/AIDS coverage in the news media has no doubt created much awareness. It has been argued that the media has informed and educated audiences across continents on how HIV is transmitted, how to avoid infection, how to treat those who have been infected with the virus, and how not to stigmatise people living with the virus.1 Arguably, the media has played a critical role in helping audiences accept their HIV statuses and live positively afterwards. It has also drawn attention to social issues that contribute to the increase of HIV infections such as mother-to-child infections, unprotected sex, accidental transmission (for instance health workers being infected accidentally through medical equipment used on infected patients), and the intentional transmission of HIV by people who knowingly infect other people.2 It has also been revealed that the media faces some challenges in its coverage of HIV/AIDS-related issues. Some of those challenges emanate from the fact that most of the health journalists are not well conversant with the terminology to use when reporting about HIV.3 Additionally, most of the journalists reporting on HIV/AIDS-related issues are not properly trained about the applicable ethics in their reporting.4 Consequently, there are times when journalists’ coverage will go beyond the ethical boundaries, while at times, they will use terminologies that are not sensitive to the people living with HIV.5 A review of 25 years of HIV/AIDS coverage by Trevor Cullen revealed that protection and prevention of new infections dominated most of the press coverage at 18 per cent of the total coverage.6 This was closely followed by HIV/AIDS research and transmission of the virus each at 13 percent press coverage. Other social issues such as stigma and discrimination only got 10 percent press coverage.7 Cullen however notes that most of the HIV/AIDS stories in the media were personality-driven.8 In other words, for HIV/AIDS to make headlines in the press, it had to be in relation to someone doing something (for example arranging a seminar, offering counselling and testing, or revealing his/her HIV status). Journalists rarely make independent inquiries into the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and accordingly, news media have through the years recycled the same news about the HIV pandemic, and have also omitted the voice of the people who are directly and indirectly affected by the disease.9 News Values News values are defined as the “criteria that the media apply to determine if and what information will be produced as news”.10 In other words, the news value of a story is judged as its newsworthiness based on its ability to convince editors that it is worth publishing and its ability to elicit public interest. Judging the news value of press coverage of HIV/AIDS, Trevor Cullen argues that audiences across the world have got tired of reading the same recycled stories; however, Cullen indicates that the media can “extend the framing of HIV from primarily a health story to one that is linked to more macro socio-economic, cultural and political factors”11 Only then can the news value of HIV coverage improve, mainly because media outlets would start treating the HIV issue with the prominence it deserves especially in relation to its effect in political, cultural and socio-economic contexts. Additionally, audiences would probably start giving HIV news more attention, particularly because they would start understanding its implications on the social, political, cultural and economic arenas. Arguably, the impact of HIV is felt by all citizens of a country because they have to be more careful in order to avoid transmission, and because some of their taxes will inevitably go into healthcare services targeting people living with HIV. Timeliness is also another news value that affects HIV reporting. For example, current infection rates would attract more attention from readers as opposed to infection rates in the past. Prominence is also an important news value in HIV reporting because it shows that everyone can contract the virus. For example, when Magic Johnson was diagnosed with HIV, it became news because he was a professional basketball player, and it also showed that anyone can get infected.12 Proximity is also an important news value in HIV reporting because the virus is usually close enough to all people in the society and they can get infected if they engage in reckless sexual behaviour, if they fail follow doctor’s advice when breastfeeding (i.e. in the case of mother-to-child transmission) and if they fail to seek medical advice in cases of the unfortunate events of accidental exposure to another person’s body fluids (such as in the example of body pricks, drugs usage where needles and syringes are shared, or rape). In a different perspective, Trevor Cullen (cited by Yang Sung-Jin13) indicates that “journalists need to realise that HIV operates like a magnifying glass that magnifies the exploitation of women, domestic violence, gender inequality, illiteracy, the lack of health facilities and the kind of rampant poverty that forces people to migrate”. Currency is also an important news value especially since HIV management is a costly affair right from the psychological cost that people living with the virus have to contend with, to the cost of the medicine, the diet they have to watch and the risk of social stigma that comes with the disease. Ethics The HIV/AIDS topic is sensitive and often contentious to cover. It has been noted that politicisation of the disease, coupled with the need to balance objectivity with sensationalism, places journalists in a tricky position.14 Even more ethically sensitive to journalists is that HIV is no longer a health story alone; rather, it has been entangled with political, social, cultural, economic, scientific and personal issues.15 In South Africa for example, it has been found that reporters have to remain sensitive to all the aforementioned issues through three principles: minimising harm, telling the truth and independence.16 It is worth noting that journalists the world over do not have a set of prescribed ethical benchmarks to use when reporting on HIV. However, as indicated in literature, journalists can take two of the ethical approaches often cited in literature: teleological ethics or deontological ethics.17 Teleological ethical perspective judges the actions of a journalist (or any other party) based on the expected outcomes.18 For example, a journalist who subscribes to the teleological ethics perspective may argue that revealing the identities of prominent people living with HIV is not necessarily unethical, because it shows that no single person is immune to the virus. The journalist may argue that by revealing identities, they are creating awareness and making the HIV infection more real to people who would otherwise not believe its mere existence. Before publishing any information about a person living with HIV, ethics requires that the journalist gets an informed consent from the person. The informed consent is obtained for purposes of minimising harm. A journalist who subscribes to the deontological ethics perspective is on the other hand duty-bound to do what is right regardless of the consequences. In other words, the journalist gauges the morality of their actions based on its adherence to existing rules. In practice, normative ethics is more applicable in the media. Normative ethics consists of guidelines of what media institutions and the journalists working in them should do or how they should behave.19 The media is ethically bound to distribute truthful information. Specifically, it is indicated that an ethical approach to HIV reportage in the media should aim to “achieve a reduction in the numbers of people who contract the virus and relieve, as far as possible, physical or psychological distress suffered by those living with HIV.”20 It is also ethically responsible to provide relevant information that shapes people’s (audience’s) destinies. Applied in the HIV context, the foregoing would mean that no matter how repetitive the topic may seem, the media is ethically responsible for ensuring that the audiences are informed about the transmission of HIV, how it is managed, and how to avoid such issues as cross-infection or accidental infection. Minimising harm is at the heart of ethics in HIV reporting, especially if people are identified in the news item.21 For starters, the person featured in a news item needs to give the journalist an informed consent. The informed consent requires the journalist to explain the consequences of the person being featured in the story, and the journalist should only proceed to publish the story if they are assured that the person still wants to go ahead with being featured in the story. Minimising harm also requires the journalist to ask for help from experts if and when they encounter uncertainties in their research, which needs to be done before publishing a news item.22 Ethical reporting further requires journalists to be sensitive about issues of human rights and stigma, confidentiality, cures (or the claims for treatments), misconceptions, gender issues, sex, and their role as health educators.23 The ‘cures’ debate is especially one to be approached with absolute caution by journalists because on one hand, a cure for HIV has not been found yet. On the other hand, failure to report about promising cures would be interpreted by researchers as failure to support attempts to find a cure. However, journalists also need to understand that some of the so-called cures could actually harm those who consume them.24 Because of this, it has been indicated that ethical reporting of HIV/AIDS-related treatments should comprehensively cover such aspects as: what the treatment or cure intended to do; how it works; the side-effects and how serious they are; any comparative trials that have been done; measurements used to confirm that the treatment works; and any peer review done on the treatment or cure.25 Language In reference to HIV/AIDS, language not only refers to what is said, but also to how something is said, and the interpretation that people get from what has been said.26 It is argued that language affects the attitudes that people have towards HIV/AIDS.27 While the purposes of the news media is to pass accurate and clear messages to the audiences, it has been noted that journalists can fail in accomplishing this purpose if the language is not accurate enough. Language specifically determines if the message that the news reporter intended to pass to audiences is clear, understandable and has the same intended values.28 Journalists should also be cautious not to use epidemiological terms when reporting about HIV/AIDS.29 Panos Institute has however found out that journalists sometimes use language that evokes strong emotions, drive discrimination, and reinforce stereotypes when reporting about HIV in Australia and elsewhere in the world.30 The media is criticised further when Deacon and others indicate that “media language is seen as embodying relations of power and authority in society and contributes to the ongoing production of social conceptions, values, identities and relations”.31 It is because of such points that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has recommended several principles for language use in HIV reporting. The organisation recommends the use of inclusive language in HIV/AIDS reporting. Specifically, the language should not create or reinforce the ‘us versus them’ mentality. UNDP further recommends the use of value-neutral and gender-sensitive language. Overall, it is important for journalists to recognise that the language they use when writing or talking about HIV helps in framing HIV/AIDS-related issues. Depending on the language, the framing can take a negative or positive tone, hence affecting how audiences perceive the disease. Conclusion There is no doubt that HIV/AIDS is a topic worth discussion in the media. However, as discussed in this paper, issues of news values, ethics and language often emerge whenever reporting of the disease in the media is analysed. Critically, it would appear that the media has played a critical role in ensuring that the necessary awareness is created around the HIV/AIDS issue. Journalists however, for the lack of knowledge or otherwise, may at times divert from the ethical way and the right language of reporting HIV/AIDS. Considering the critical role that the media plays in informing and educating audiences, such diversion in ethics and in languages can result in creating or reinforcing negative attitudes or perceptions that audiences have towards HIV. Even more critical is that erroneous HIV reporting can lead to serious social and economic problems – for instance when people living with HIV start taking ‘cures’ or treatments reported in the media without indicating the implications of such medicines. Some of the viable solutions to having a media that observes ethics, news values and the right language in HIV/AIDS reporting include training them about the terminology to use when reporting about the phenomenon. Additionally, journalists can be trained on matters relating to ethics and news values. Of specific importance is to keep the conversation about HIV/AIDS alive in the minds of audiences. This would ensure that people do not forget the ways through which the disease is transmitted, how it is managed once a person is diagnosed with it, and how one can contribute positively to the society even after contracting the virus. The media also has a responsibility to shield people living with HIV from stigma and discrimination. Moreover, journalists have a responsibility to ensure that they use sensitive language when talking or writing about HIV-related issues. In conclusion, it is important that journalists research more and inform audiences about the implications of HIV to the social, political, economic and cultural aspects of the society. Only by doing so can HIV remain newsworthy and hence relevant to audiences who need to be constantly aware of the phenomenon. Bibliography Cullen, Trevor “Reporting HIV: Obstacles and Challenges.” Paper Presented at the United Nations Sponsored Workshop for International Journalists, Busan, South Korea, August 29, 2011. Cullen, Trevor. “Health Communication Theories: Implications for HIV Reporting in Asia and the Pacific.” Asia Pacific Media Educator, 19 (2009). Cullen, Trevor. “HIV/AIDS: 25 Years of Press Coverage.” Australian Journalism Review, 28/2 (2006), 187-198. Cullinan, Kerry. “Reporting Ethically and Effectively on HIV/AIDS in South Africa.” Journ-AIDS Roundtable. (May 2003). 3 Day, Louis. Ethics in Media Communication: Cases and Controversies. Belmont :Thompson Wadsworth (2006) Deacon, David, Pickering, Michael, Golding, Peter and Murdock, Graham. Researching Communications: A Practical Guide to Methods in Media and Cultural Analysis. London: Hodder Arnold. (2007). Foreman, Martin. “An Ethical Guide to Reporting HIV/AIDS.” In Kwame Boafo and Carlos Arnaldo (Eds.). Media and HIV/AIDS in East and Southern Africa: A Resource Book. UNESCO: Paris (2000), 25-35. Gillman, Sarah. “News Values and News Culture in a Changing World.” In Jason Bainbridge, Nicola Goc, and Lyz Tynan. Media and Journalism – New Approaches to Theory and Practice, (2011), OUP, London. 245-256. International Federation of Journalists. “HIV/AIDS Media Guide: IFJ Media Guide and Research Report on the Media’s Reporting of HIV/AIDS.” (2006). Irimu, Ken, and Schwartz, Arthur. “Reporting HIV/AIDS: A Guide for Kenyan Journalists. Friedrich Ebert Stifung: Germany. (n.d.). Juschkat, Amy. “An Insurmountable Task? Reporting on AIDS in South Africa.” July 4, 2008. Accessed October 2, 2014, . McKay, Fiona et al. “Aids Assassins”: Australian Media’s Portrayal of HIV-Positive Refugees Who Deliberately Infect Others.” Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 9 (2011).. Moqasa, Nketsi Abel and Salawu, Abiodun. An Examination of the Language Use of Selected South African Newspapers in Reporting HIV/AIDS.” Journal of Communication, 4 (2013), 143-152. Moughty, Sarah. “20 Years after HIV announcement, Magic Johnson emphasizes: “I am not cured.”” PBS Frontline. November 7, 2011. Accessed October 3, 2014, < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/endgame-aids-in-black-america/20-years-after-hiv-announcement-magic-johnson-emphasizes-i-am-not-cured/> Panos Institute. “Lessons for Today and Tomorrow: An Analysis of HIV Reporting in South Africa.” Paper Presented in Lusaka, Zambia. (2004). Panos Institute. “Reporting AIDS: An analysis of Media Environments in Southern Africa.” (2011). Panos Institute. “Responsible Reporting on HIV and AIDS: A Guide for Jamaican Media Workers.” (2008). Retief, John. Media Ethics. Cape Town: Oxford (2002). UNICEF. “Media Guide: Reporting on HIV/AIDS” Unite For Children, May 2006. Accessed October 2, 2014, Yang, Sung-Jin. “Workshop to Focus on Media and HIV.” The ICAAP10 Herald, August 29 (2011). Read More

Additionally, audiences would probably start giving HIV news more attention, particularly because they would start understanding its implications on the social, political, cultural and economic arenas. Arguably, the impact of HIV is felt by all citizens of a country because they have to be more careful in order to avoid transmission, and because some of their taxes will inevitably go into healthcare services targeting people living with HIV. Timeliness is also another news value that affects HIV reporting.

For example, current infection rates would attract more attention from readers as opposed to infection rates in the past. Prominence is also an important news value in HIV reporting because it shows that everyone can contract the virus. For example, when Magic Johnson was diagnosed with HIV, it became news because he was a professional basketball player, and it also showed that anyone can get infected.12 Proximity is also an important news value in HIV reporting because the virus is usually close enough to all people in the society and they can get infected if they engage in reckless sexual behaviour, if they fail follow doctor’s advice when breastfeeding (i.e. in the case of mother-to-child transmission) and if they fail to seek medical advice in cases of the unfortunate events of accidental exposure to another person’s body fluids (such as in the example of body pricks, drugs usage where needles and syringes are shared, or rape).

In a different perspective, Trevor Cullen (cited by Yang Sung-Jin13) indicates that “journalists need to realise that HIV operates like a magnifying glass that magnifies the exploitation of women, domestic violence, gender inequality, illiteracy, the lack of health facilities and the kind of rampant poverty that forces people to migrate”. Currency is also an important news value especially since HIV management is a costly affair right from the psychological cost that people living with the virus have to contend with, to the cost of the medicine, the diet they have to watch and the risk of social stigma that comes with the disease.

Ethics The HIV/AIDS topic is sensitive and often contentious to cover. It has been noted that politicisation of the disease, coupled with the need to balance objectivity with sensationalism, places journalists in a tricky position.14 Even more ethically sensitive to journalists is that HIV is no longer a health story alone; rather, it has been entangled with political, social, cultural, economic, scientific and personal issues.15 In South Africa for example, it has been found that reporters have to remain sensitive to all the aforementioned issues through three principles: minimising harm, telling the truth and independence.

16 It is worth noting that journalists the world over do not have a set of prescribed ethical benchmarks to use when reporting on HIV. However, as indicated in literature, journalists can take two of the ethical approaches often cited in literature: teleological ethics or deontological ethics.17 Teleological ethical perspective judges the actions of a journalist (or any other party) based on the expected outcomes.18 For example, a journalist who subscribes to the teleological ethics perspective may argue that revealing the identities of prominent people living with HIV is not necessarily unethical, because it shows that no single person is immune to the virus.

The journalist may argue that by revealing identities, they are creating awareness and making the HIV infection more real to people who would otherwise not believe its mere existence. Before publishing any information about a person living with HIV, ethics requires that the journalist gets an informed consent from the person. The informed consent is obtained for purposes of minimising harm. A journalist who subscribes to the deontological ethics perspective is on the other hand duty-bound to do what is right regardless of the consequences.

In other words, the journalist gauges the morality of their actions based on its adherence to existing rules.

Read More