HIV in the Media | Data Sheet

4 min readMar 21, 2017

The impact of the media on society influences how people view others, and therefore, impacts how people talk about different issues, including HIV and AIDS.

This study evaluates how journalists and Spanish-speaking media in Latin America and the Caribbean refer to HIV and AIDS and what words are used. When the language used by the media is not appropriate, it can increasing levels of stigma and discrimination towards people living with HIV.

For this analysis we have the technical support of buho, a company that specializes in the measurement and evaluation of communications with extensive experience in the private and governmental sector. The methodology includes the analysis of each fragment where HIV or AIDS is named in the news of high-level media in the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

These partial results include information from the news from October 1 to November 30, 2016, from nineteen different countries, which had publications in the media monitored.

This research aims to be able to measure the problem in order to make decisions that support the change in the way HIV is covered. The challenge is to get the media interested in changing the way they refer to HIV and to begin to use the tools they have, such as guidelines for the good exercise of coverage of this issue.

This study is the first of its kind, examining HIV reporting in Latin American and working to draw the attention of journalists and media. By the end of the year we will have the results of the analysis of six months of publications.This involves the analysis of more than 6000 news and the results will be posted through an internet site with easy access for all people.

The methodology is based on the analysis of the mentions where the words HIV or AIDS are mentioned. In each of these mentions the context, the subject being addressed (prevention, treatment, research, etc., the words used (illness, transmission, STDs, new cases, etc.) are analyzed, the populations that are immersed In the content (LGBT, women, children, drug users, sex workers, etc.), infections or diseases that most relate to the media when they talk about HIV (tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis, etc.) , whether language used is appropriate or not and if the article is original content or replicated from another news source.

The study will serve as evidence or basis to establish an approach to get closer to journalists and media in order to generate change in the way they write about HIV, which will have an impact on broader Latin American society that easily replicates stereotypes presented by the media.

Analyzed media

Analyzed Countries

Results

*Negative and positive refers to the language used appropriately or Inaccurate in the article.

In the total of Mention.

Among the topics are HIV and AIDS that are the ones with the highest number of articles because they are the words sought in the monitoring. For these results other issues other than these are taken into account.