Cancer, Heart Disease, and AIDS: What Do The Media Tell Us About These Diseases?

Understandings that societies have about illnesses have social ramifications that extend beyond the physiological conditions alone. Cancer and heart disease are major causes of death in North America. AIDS, a new disease, is an epidemic with great lethal potentiality. All three diseases are experienced directly or indirectly by most of the population of North America. In a mass society, one significant source of information about disease, its nature, causes, and treatment is the mass media. This article examines select North American mass media – namely, Time, Newsweek, Maclean's, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest – in 1961-1965 and 1980-1985 to compare the images of cancer, heart disease, and AIDS.