Study Overview
The study entitled From complacency to panic: AIDS and heterosexuals in the Australian press, July 1986 to June 1988 (Lupton, 1992) reports on the preliminary findings from a content analysis of AIDS news coverage in Australian press from June 1986 to July 1988. When revealing the preliminary varying ideologies in press, Lupton stresses the importance of evaluating how the popular media selects and presents news according to societal interests. Lupton (1992) seeks to point out the common situation in Australia that most people lies on information reported by the media rather than by health professionals. She continues to use this study to illustrate if media reporting has a significant impact on shaping public attitudes and behaviour. Her study expresses a concern that the popular press has increasingly resorted to publishing false and sensational stories related to human health without factual evidence that often results in provoking panic within audiences. In order to create AIDS into a media sensation for the audiences, newspapers have long inclined to entertain and misinform readers by putting its blame on promiscuous heterosexuals, homosexual men, and intravenous drug users. The view of Lupton (1992) is in accord with this idea and she further seeks to explore if it applies to the Australian press in this study.
The study undertakes a content analysis with all articles mentioning AIDS in Australian newspapers published between 1986 and 1988. The research demonstrates that the press generally helps the amplification to reporting AIDS as a spread to heterosexual population by supporting the first public health information campaign called the ‘Grim Reaper’ campaign (Ibid). The ‘Grim Reaper’ campaign used horrible...
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...er concern towards heterosexuals in press reporting and failure of increased level of hostile treatment are worth being applied to Lupton’s study in particular (Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994).
Bibliography
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Goode, Erich and Nachman Ben-Yehuda (1994) Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Lupton, D. (1992) From complacenct to panic: AIDS and heterosexuals in the Australian press, July 1986 to June 1988 in Helath Education Research Theory and Practice. 7(1): pp9-20.
Lupton, D. (1994) Moral Threats and Dangerous Desires: AIDS in the News Media. New York: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
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Carstarphen, Meta G., and Susan C. Zavoina. Sexual Rhetoric: Media Perspectives on Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Print.
Just as Arthur Miller, the writer of “The Crucible”, said, “Sex,sin, and the devil were early linked” (Miller,1125). During the AIDS hysteria, homosexual intercourse was thought to be the cause of widespread immune deficiency, so the disease was soon labeled “Gay Men’s Health Crisis” (“History of HIV and AIDS”). As time progressed AIDS, it was discovered, could also be spread through heterosexual couples(“History of HIV and AIDS”). This
Even after the disease and its modes of transmission had been correctly identified, fear and ignorance remained widespread. In the mid 1980s, “AIDS hysteria” became a well known term in the media and public life. For example, a magazine published details about how extensive AIDS/HIV related discrimination became. “Anxiety over AIDS in some parts of the U.S. is verging on hysteria,” the authors wrote; they later published this disturbing example:
Randy Shilts set out to make monumental changes in the world’s perspective of AIDS. He planned to enlighten, motivate, and educate the population on this tragic disease that has already claimed so many lives. He believed that virtually all the misconceptions about AIDS would be corrected and the public would insist that more be done to stop the epidemic. "I had hoped to effect some fundamental changes. I really believed I could alter the performance of the institutions that had allowed AIDS to sweep through America unchecked" (220). Shilts’s immense expectations positioned him for his inevitable sense of failure. He did not accomplished all that he had planned. AIDS was still spreading and people were still dying. "The bitter irony is, my role as an AIDS celebrity just gives me a more elevated promontory from which to watch the world make the same mistakes in the handling of the AIDS epidemic that I hoped my work would help to change"(220).
Bonila, Denise M., and Levy, Beth, Eds. The Power of the Press. H. W. Wilson, 1999.
The Movie “And the Band Played On” is the framework of the earliest years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Also known as the Gay disease. The movie examines HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the earlier 1980’s and emphasizes on three crucial components. An immunologist with knowledge in eradicating smallpox and containing the Ebola virus, joins the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to attempt and recognize just what this disease is. The film also deals the administration and government side that does not seem to care. The homosexual community in San Francisco is separated on the nature of the disease but also want to know what should be done
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The media is a large part of our everyday lives; everywhere we go we can find a source of media. It influences our thoughts, feelings and behaviours every day as it is a huge influence in today’s society. Society heavily relies on the media to show them what is in the norm and what is going on in the world. The media also serves as another way to display the normative of the society. Sexuality is a big part in the media and what is appropriate sexuality. The media negatively affects the people who do not fit society’s ideal normative. This includes people with a sexuality that is not the normative of heterosexuality. In the media, these people of other sexualities are excluded and made to feel they do not fit into society. My pyramid shows how society classifies people by their sexuality in the media. This involves highlighting the normative sexuality and excluded any other sexuality from the mainstream media.
In the movie And the Band Played On, stakeholders’ interests stymied public health efforts to research and implement health policy to control the rapidly emerging disease, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The stakeholders within the movie, those whose interest would be impacted by policy change, included the affected populations, scientists, state and federal public health officials, and organizations including blood banks. Early in the epidemic, the Center for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were tentative in disclosing vital information – many homosexual men were becoming infected in the bathhouses (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Despite having the supporting evidence of patient zero and a sexual cluster
Tucker, C. "Sex in the Media: A Subtle Perpetrator." (2009): n. pag. Radford University. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
During these difficult economic times sensationalism has become more prevalent in the media. Stories involving sex scandals and child murders have taken over our T.V and internet screens as well as the front pages of our newspapers. The media bias of sensationalism has been used as a sort of escapism for readers. Although it may seem that sensationalism has just started making waves, it has been around for decades. Sensationalism has been influencing viewers and contributing to media bias since the days of the penny press. Sensationalisms long history has been turbulent, self-serving, and influential to today’s reporting practices. With the influence over readers’ sensationalism’s media bias have and will continue to affect media reporting for years to come.
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.
Weldon T. Sex and the New Media. State News (Council Of State Governments) [serial online]. August 2009;52(7):17. Available from: MasterFILE Premier, Ipswich,
In order to understand how media can affect society or individuals, it is first necessary to look at different approaches that can be taken to analyze the media. According to the book Media Now, there are two main approaches that are used: the deductive approach and the inductive approach. The deductive approach is when a social scientist first comes up with theories or predictions through systematic observations of the media, and then uses the results of their research to support the theory or prove it false. An inductive approach is slightly opposite because this method looks first at peoples interactions with media and with each other, and then creates theories from the real-life situational research. The inductive approach tends to be used more frequently because its theories are based off real instances. Another difference in the ways to approach researching the effects of media is how some social scientists are interested in quantitative information while others are more interested in qualitative information. Quantitative information is when the desired results are as many as possible, while qualitative information is when the desired results are made up of the best, most useful information. All of these approaches and methods of research influence how social scientists determine the ways that media effects society and individuals. The kinds of studies done by these social scientists create detailed profiles of media and its content, and identify trends overtime. For example, one study found that exposure to alcohol advertising and television programming has been shown to be associated with positive beliefs about drinking and alcohol consumption (Austin 2).
“The media may be especially important for young people as they are developing their own sexual beliefs and patterns of behavior and as parents and schools remain reluctant to discuss sexual topics (p.26)”.