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AIDS in the Media

sease Control (Juhasz, 45). It wasnt until the end of July 1982 that the CDC adopted the name acquired immune deficiency syndrome- AIDS as the official name of the new disease (www.library.ucsf.edu/sc/ahp/). Since the average person wasnt considered to be at risk there was almost no mainstream coverage of the disease. It has been noted that until the epidemic began moving beyond just gay men, IV drug users, etc., that it wasnt a story that interested the average viewer (Elderidge, 214). The fact that these two groups were already routinely portrayed as deviant minorities encouraged in many the impulse to invest AIDS with the supernatural power to seek out stigmatized and marginalized groups (Eldridge, 214). The networks didnt want to see stories about junkies and homosexuals. In the very little coverage the disease did get it was depicted as a mysterious disease affecting only gay men (Juhasz, 45). Implicitly, these characterized gay men- because of their habits or their sexual intimacy as responsible for their illness. Because of this bias and extreme misrepresentation the gay media picked up the story and began reporting about AIDS in medical terms. The information that these early articles provided helped to answer questions and fill in gaps that were left by the mainstream media (Juhasz, 45). The history of AIDS includes a history of struggle over meanings and representations. AIDS is not only a medical crisis on an unparalleled scale, it involves a crisis of representation itself, a crisis over the entire framing of knowledge about the human body (Eldridge, 212).There have also been divisions over the terminology used to describe people with HIV. On one side, AIDS victims are still seen as doomed or human time-bombs who are sentenced to death or cursed. Then on the other, they are just seen as people living with AIDS or people with the virus. These issues are a few of the important issues involved in te debate of the...

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