FREE ESSAY ON AIDS IN THE MEDIA

AIDS IN THE MEDIA

It was only nineteen years ago when the world was first introduced to the AIDS virus, but
by 1983 a significant number of people had died from the dreaded disease and media
coverage began. AIDS was almost immediately viewed as one of the most stimulating
scientific puzzles of the century. On June 5, 1981, the Federal Centers of Disease
Control reported five cases of a rare pneumonia among gay men. It is the manner in which
this epidemic has been reported that is my main focus. " In the case of AIDS, the popular
media, especially the news media, have played an extremely important role in drawing upon
pre-established knowledge and belief systems to create this new disease as a meaningful
phenomenon, particularly in regions dominated by the mass media such as westernized
countries" (Lupton, 4). It is more than the way this disease has been reported, it is the
way in which the news accounts of AIDS have been constructed and have changed over the
decade, and specifically the way in which AIDS has been known (Lupton, 4). 
"The earliest representations of AIDS as a 'plague' or as a 'gay plague' suggested that
aids was being made to carry a heavy burden of meanings and connotations quite extraneous
to the virus itself and more to do with unresolved fears about sexuality and social
order" (Eldridge, 213). The first reports of this disease were in medical journals and
weren't seen until 1981, although the symptoms associated with this disease had been
noted in gay patients as early as 1979. The mainstream press was very uninterested in
getting involved. The first "expert" appeared on Good Morning America for forty-five
seconds to respond to an article that was printed in the December 1981 issue of the
prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. In the first six months only five stories
about this new epidemic appeared in the national press. In these early times the disease
had been named GRID - Gay Related Immune Deficiency by the Center for Disease Control
(Juhasz, 45). It wasn't until the end of July 1982 that the CDC adopted the name
"acquired immune deficiency syndrome- AIDS" as the official name of the new disease
(www.library.ucsf.edu/sc/ahp/). Since the average person wasn't considered to be at risk
there was almost no mainstream coverage of the disease. It has been noted that until the
epidemic began moving beyond just gay men, IV drug users, etc., that it wasn't a story
that interested the average viewer (Elderidge, 214). "The fact that these two groups were
already routinely portrayed as 'deviant' minorities encouraged in many the impulse to
invest AIDS with the supernatural power to 'seek out' stigmatized and marginalized groups
(Eldridge, 214). "The networks didn't want to see stories about junkies and homosexuals".
In the very little coverage the disease did get it was depicted as a "mysterious disease"
affecting only gay men (Juhasz, 45). " Implicitly, these characterized gay men- because
of their 'habits' or their 'sexual intimacy' - as responsible for their illness. Because
of this bias and extreme misrepresentation the gay media picked up the story and began
reporting about AIDS in medical terms. The information that these early articles provided
helped to answer questions and fill in gaps that were left by the mainstream media
(Juhasz, 45). 
"The history of AIDS includes a history of struggle over meanings and representations.
AIDS is not only a medical crisis on an unparalleled scale, it involves a crisis of
representation itself, a crisis over the entire framing of knowledge about the human
body…" (Eldridge, 212).
There have also been divisions over the terminology used to describe people with HIV. On
one side, AIDS victims are still seen as 'doomed' or 'human time-bombs' who are
'sentenced to death' or 'cursed'. Then on the other, they are just seen as 'people living
with AIDS' or 'people with the virus'. These issues are a few of the important issues
involved in te debate of the role of the media in our understanding of AIDS (Eldridge,
212).
It wasn't until 1983 that the mainstream press began reporting on this disease. At this
time the disease had killed almost fifteen hundred people (based on CDC control
statistics for the US) and health officials declared AIDS the United States number one
health priority (www.usatoday.com/life/health/1hs650.htm). "The mainstream press coverage
increased by six hundred percent, based on the release of a report in the Journal of the
American Medical Association that the virus could be contracted casually, as well as
reports that the virus could be contracted through blood transfusions" (Juhaz, 45-46).
In 1986, the Department of Health began an AIDS education campaign that focused on
heterosexual or 'everyone'. The campaign was met with much criticism because it was still
the belief of the majority that AIDS was a disease that affected only 'gays, junkies and
foreigners' (Elderidge, 214). It was said that the campaign was not only focusing on the
wrong groups but also being dishonest foe addressing everyone and normal heterosexual
sex. In 1989, Lord Kilbracken, a minority voice on the all Parliamentary Group on AIDS
claimed that there was only one case of AIDS proven to be caused by heterosexual sex. The
newspapers, of course backed up the story and ran articles with headlines like, 'THE
TRUTH ABOUT AIDS' and 'STRAIGHT SEX CANNOT GIVE YOU AIDS - OFFICIAL' (Elderidge, 215).