Hiv & Aids Stigma, Namibian Newspapers And Health Policies, 2000 - 2012: An Investigation Of Framing, Priming And Agenda-Setting Effects.

ABSTRACT

Media representation of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired

Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) disease has greatly influenced how the disease

and those who are affected by it are perceived in the society, thus often causing

stigma towards those infected and affected.

This dissertation therefore investigated to what extent stigma is present in print

media reporting on HIV & AIDS in Namibia. This is because controlling the spread

and managing HIV & AIDS in the country has been a major challenge not only for

the nation but for other southern African countries due to the high prevalence

(Lewthwaite & Wilkins, 2009, p.333).

Using purposive sampling, the researcher selected articles in two Namibian

newspapers – The Namibian - the largest private newspaper and New Era - the

largest government newspaper in Namibia, all totaling 1334 to determine framing of

HIV & AIDS stories. This approach was also used to identify texts as well as

headlines which were content analyzed because purposive sampling is quite useful

given the nature of reporting on HIV & AIDS in the local press (Wimmer &

Dominick, 2014, Leedy & Ormrod, 2005). Priming, Framing, Agenda-Setting and

Social Construction of Reality theories undergirded the research (Goffman, 1974;

Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007; Berger & Luckmann, 1966)

while its philosophical basis was constructivism (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004),

which is a theoretical framework which argues that human beings construct meaning

from a combination of their lived experiences and ideas.

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There are many findings of the research as there are three stand alone chapters but a

brief from all the three: (1) That high level of stigma exists in framing HIV & AIDS

stories in the two newspapers; (2) the complex nature of coverage of HIV & AIDS

stories is evident in the way reporters write stories about the epidemic as well as

those who are affected by HIV & AIDS; (3) how the stories are presented exhibits

thematic and contextual characteristics of the epidemic; (4) Policy developers need

to incorporate media as key stakeholders; (5) Few of critical persons that deal with

issues of HIV or AIDS such as reporters and others working with HIV & AIDS

organisations are aware of the UNAIDS Terminology Guidelines – UNAIDS needs

to correct that; (6) UNAIDS’ advise that organisations should not use HIV/AIDS

should also be subject to their own use of the words as in their various documents,

they still use HIV/AIDS; (7) Specialised training of media reporters on HIV & AIDS

as well as other stigmatised diseases is inevitable.

The principal contribution to knowledge of this study is that a high level of stigma is

still driving the way HIV & AIDS is reported in Namibia. Secondly, HIV & AIDS

reporting should be regarded as a specialized area requiring specialized training to be

given coverage in a neutral and value free manner in the mass media. Thirdly, it is

proposed that Namibia specific AIDS reporting guidelines such as this study

produced be formulated to address this shortcoming. Words form local languages

can be added to the final Reporting Code.

Key Words: HIV & AIDS, media, stigma, priming, framing, agenda-setting, social

construction of reality, theme analysis, guidelines