Transnational AIDS-HIV News Narratives: A Critical Exploration of Overarching Frames

This macrolevel study employs a social constructionist approach to analyze AIDS-HIV coverage in the 1990s by 5 transnational wire services: the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Telegrafnoye Agenstvo Sovetskovo Soyuza, and Inter Press Service. Content was mainly analyzed for prominent themes, news makers, and representations of various world regions. Notions of news framing, characteristics of AIDS-HIV news discourse, and the politics of international news flow provided theoretical guidance. The findings indicate a slight shift away from the biomedical discourse foregrounded in AIDS news in the 1980s. Socioeconomic, public policy, and human-rights themes have gained ground. Prevention and education, and the projection of AIDS-HIV as a globally interrelated phenomenon receive peripheral treatment. Coverage assumes mostly Western cultural perspectives, and the volume of stories has declined through the 1990s. Ideation of AIDS as a moral tale has diminished. Strategies for sociopolitical contestation of mainstream global AIDS news discourse are discussed.