Archetypes of Infection: People with HIV/AIDS in the Australian Press in the Mid 1990s

This article presents the findings of an interpretive analysis of the representation of people with HIV/AIDS in the Australian press in a three‐year period between 1994 and 1996. Three major archetypes of people with HIV/AIDS dominating reports – the ‘AIDS victim’, the ‘AIDS survivor’ and the ‘AIDS carrier’– are discussed for what they reveal not only about contemporary approaches to HIV/AIDS but also about more general notions of morality and self‐control related to the body, medicine, health and illness. It is argued that these dominant archetypes inevitably draw from previous representations of HIV/AIDS, but at the same time demonstrate evidence of changing discourses and meanings. One feature of particular interest is that moral judgements related to people with HIV/AIDS presented in these news texts appear to be based less on how they acquired the virus than the manner in which they deport themselves once infected.