Initial events and trends in the discussion of HIV and AIDS in mass media contributed to the stigma and discrimination against those affected with the disease. Later discussion, sometimes led by HIV+ individuals themselves, moved toward advocacy and education on disease prevention and management. The UNESCO report on Journalism Education says, "Well researched television content can create public awareness about HIV prevention, treatment, care and support can potentially influence the development and implementation of relevant policies."
The condition which was later to be called AIDS was first noticed in June 1981 when the Centers for Disease Control reported that five gay men in Los Angeles all died from a similar rare set of disease symptoms. Within two months 100 more gay men had died, and there was public awareness from medical publication that some new disease existed. Most media outlets have shown the tendency to universalize by emphasizing the risk to an entire age group, sex or sexual orientation as opposed to the behaviors and characteristics of individuals which pose the greater risk. How and when various media outlets throughout the world published this information varies, as has subsequent and contemporary reporting and depiction of HIV and AIDS in the media.
Many artists and AIDS activists such as Larry Kramer, Diamanda Galás and Rosa von Praunheim campaign for AIDS education and the rights of those affected. These artists worked with various media formats.
Media figures known for presenting HIV/AIDS issues.
Worldwide and historically, public figures have often led trends in reporting HIV/AIDS issues.
Rock Hudson.
Rock Hudson was a high-profile Hollywood actor who died of AIDS-related complications on October 2, 1985.
Earlier that year the AIDS Project Los Angeles began arranging a benefit called the "Commitment to Life" dinner which had the goal of raising $1 million to fund a cure for AIDS. Originally the event had been scheduled in the small Century Plaza Hotel ballroom, but in July 1985 Hudson announced that he had AIDS and endorsed the event, greatly increasing the notoriety of the event and necessitating a change in venue to the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. On September 19, 1985, many top Hollywood personalities including Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley MacLaine and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley attended the event, with performances by Carol Burnett, Sammy Davis Jr., Rod Stewart, Cyndi Lauper, Diahann Carroll and others.
Magic Johnson.
American basketball player Magic Johnson announced on November 7, 1991, that he had HIV. This announcement raised awareness among black people that HIV was a problem and it also highlighted that HIV could be transmitted through heterosexual sex.
Johnson's announcement resulted in a surge of Americans getting tested for HIV. A national conversation began when millions of people who had previously considered AIDS to be outside of their concern suddenly regarded the disease as a threat because a healthy male and public idol had contracted the infection.
Pedro Zamora.
Pedro Zamora was a Cuban American gay male who contracted HIV as a teenager, became an HIV activist, was a feature of MTV's television show "", then died of AIDS at age 22 in 1994. He is notable as being a major public figure who contracted HIV and whose everyday life was well-documented in mass media. In 1993 he testified to the United States Congress on his experience, and stated that "If you want to reach me as a young gay man—especially a young gay man of color—then you need to give me information in a language and vocabulary I can understand and relate to." He is credited as being a particularly effective spokesperson for raising awareness about HIV in the Latino community.
Princess Diana.
Diana Frances Spencer, Princess of Wales, who died on August 31, 1997, was a supporter of raising awareness on AIDS, and breaking the belief that AIDS can be shared by touch.
Princess Diana opened up the United Kingdoms first AIDS ward, which is located at the London Middlesex Hospital, during the spring of 1987.
In 1991, a photograph was printed which showed Princess Diana shaking hands with an AIDS patient in the Casey House—a resident hall for patients with AIDS. In the photograph, it's seen that Diana was not wearing gloves while she was shaking hands with the AIDS patient.
Themes in media depictions.
Some identified themes which repeatedly appear in media depicting HIV are the concept of "other", victim blaming, heterosexism, and comparisons of the lifestyles of people in urban areas versus rural areas.
Other.
In media with a theme of the "other" there is some depiction of a dichotomy. The divide in stories depicting AIDS is often HIV-positive people versus people without HIV, persons at high risk for contracting HIV versus people with low risk, innocent victims of HIV versus people shown to have guilt, and the general concept of contamination in blood versus pure blood. In all of these cases, movies dealing with AIDS-related subject matter frequently portray one side of the dichotomy as good and the other as evil.
Victim blaming.
Movies with a theme of "victim blaming" often portray people living with AIDS as being guilty or culpable for contracting HIV. In such themes, persons with HIV often threaten the health of innocent people.
Heterosexism.
The United States news media associated AIDS with gay men beginning in 1982 despite the CDC at that time having regularly revealed that other populations also were contracting the infection causing AIDS. By 1983 nearly all media about gay men was in the context of delivering AIDS stories. Movies which feature HIV as a theme frequently depict a gay male as the central character with AIDS. Media depiction of AIDS as a gay male disease is problematic because it fails to promote public understanding of the impact of AIDS on the diverse populations which AIDS affects.
Urban versus rural.
Representations of AIDS in media may make a comparison between urban and rural areas. In such portrayals, the city may be portrayed as a place for gay community and the spread of AIDS while the rural areas represent morality, conservationism, and freedom from harmful deviancy.
Role of new media.
Previously, limited information stemmed from a handful of authoritative sources. For HIV/AIDS, the new media brings about opportunities as well as challenges. "There is potential for these changes to bring greater pluralism, access to information, democratization and responsiveness to consumers' needs." However, "these changes also bring a highly advertising-driven and commercial media, prone to sensationalism and often highly sexualized."
Notable depiction.
Cartoons.
Andy Lippincott's death from AIDS in the comic strip "Doonesbury" on May 24, 1990, ran on the obituary page of "The San Francisco Chronicle", and Andy also received a square in the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Poetry.
"A Quilt For David"(2021) by Steven Reigns reassesses the story of David J. Acer, the Florida dentist accused of deliberately infecting six of his patients with HIV in 1990. Reigns challenges the media depiction of Acer as a "modern Dracula" at the time. Evidence has since come to light that Acer may not have been responsible for the infections.
By Region.
Africa.
Kenya.
In 1990 the director of the Kenya Medical Research Institute announced that with a drug called Kemron he had cured many AIDS patients of HIV. Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi supported this claim whereupon the research received international scrutiny and was determined by all experts to be without merit.
South Africa.
South Africa boasts a highly developed mass media communications infrastructure. There are five open broadcast commercial television stations, 38 commercial radio stations, 70 community radio stations, 16 daily commercial news papers, one bi-weekly newspaper, 25 weekly newspapers, and several smaller circulation titles. Even so, "Years of state denial in South Africa resulted in poor national understanding of HIV and the urgent need to increase public engagement with health research, and encourage behaviour that reduces transmission and supports the uptake of relevant health interventions." The areas that are the least represented in the media include prevention, care, and stigma reduction.
More recently, several projects have been initiated in South Africa to increase HIV/AIDS awareness including the Commuter Aids Information Project (2007–2011) and an initiative from 1996 to 1997 by the National DoH, which used the taxi industry in an awareness and condom distribution campaign. The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies began another similar project that was launched in February 2011. The project highlights the important role the media plays on health education using the term edutainment. In this project, entitled Jiving with Science, three different types of CDs were passed out to mini-bus taxi drivers and other community stakeholders, including shop operators and hairdressers, over the course of two years. These CDs contained narratives on the science behind HIV/AIDS mixed in with popular music and celebrity endorsements. The community stakeholders were told to play the CDs, which resulted in widespread outreach in the South African community. The researchers chose to use an audio form of media because of the rural nature of their research area, meaning a strong oral culture and relatively low literacy levels. An important aspect of edutainment is quality, which was very important for the researchers. The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies has spent a significant amount of time and money to ensure that they were providing high-quality entertainment. The project is still ongoing, but the goal is that it can be used in the future as, "a model to develop other small-media edutainment interventions at Africa Centre, and in other comparative settings."
Sub-Saharan Africa.
Out of the entire global population, two thirds of those affected with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa, a region with only about 12% of the world's population. Jung et al. (2013) conducted a cross-sectional study on 13 sub-Saharan countries, with the purpose of analyzing data from each country's Demographic Health Surveys between 2004 and 2010 to determine the correlation, if any, between HIV/AIDS knowledge, condom usage, and varying socioeconomic statuses (SES). Historically, sub-Saharan Africa has been behind on mass media usage until the beginning of the 21st century. Now, they make use of radio, television, and newspapers. In fact, 5.2% of all households have televisions and 36.9% of the population subscribes to mobile services. The study's hypothesis was that, "communication inequalities, differential media use among social classes, may be one plausible mechanism through which social inequalities in wealth and education lead to knowledge disparities of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa." The study gathered information from a total of 220,099 sub-Saharan Africans and the results were as follows: over 90% knew what HIV/AIDS is, 61% knew how the disease is transmitted, and ~64% knew about prevention methods. A total of 22% of men and 10% of women reported using condoms, a significantly lower figure than those that reported knowledge of prevention methods. Media usage figures from the study were as follows: 36.7% of people listen to the radio, 17.6% watch television, and 6.4% read newspapers daily. A positive correlation between SES and media use was also found, which supports the original hypothesis. Those Africans that came from wealthier socioeconomic statuses generally had more knowledge of all aspects of HIV/AIDS including definition, transmission, and prevention. Similarly, there was found to be higher condom usage among the wealthier.
Media effect on donor assistance.
A study conducted by Fabrizio Carmignani, Grace Lordan, and Kam Ki Tang specifically studied the correlation between media usage and aid for HIV/AIDS in Africa. The study was conducted using a panel of 21 donor countries and the aid the entire continent of Africa. They used the entire continent for two reasons: most of the HIV media coverage refers to the whole continent and there are many continent-wide organizations that give aid including USAID HIV/AIDS Regional Health Profile for Southern Africa. In short, they found that media coverage increases aid disbursement. They describe on page 29 that, "The dollar effect of one additional article in the press... is approximately equal to US $800." This means that for every article printed about HIV/AIDS, $800 of aid is given to afflicted African countries.
Brazil.
In Brazil a campaign was developed to counteract local Catholic leaders' assertion that condoms are permeable to HIV. The ad poster depicted a condom inflated with water and containing a goldfish and displaying a message which translates as, "nothing gets through a condom."
Singer Kelly Key was a spokesperson to highschool age young adults in a campaign in which she said, "Show how you've grown up. This Carnaval, use condoms."
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began an international discussion about fairness of pricing of HIV drugs when he signed a license allowing Brazil's purchase of generic efavirenz against the