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SA Media's 'blind spot' on Aids
MediaTenor
2004-06-18

Analysis shows that the pandemic has dropped from the media's agenda. The growing HIV/Aids pandemic on the African continent has been largely ignored by South African media.

Analysis shows that the pandemic has dropped from the media's agenda. The growing HIV/Aids pandemic on the African continent has been largely ignored by South African media. This is the result of an analysis by Media Tenor, the Institute for Media Analysis in Pretoria. Based on a long-terms study of television news from 2002-2003, an in-depth research of daily and weekly print media in the first quarter of 2004 is confirming this trend.

An analysis of 31 204 television news reports on the South African Broadcasting Corporation's English news and the independent e.tv news in a two-year period reveals that Aids received only 1.4% of the total coverage. In 2004, the amount of coverage across all forms of media decreased to 1.2%, with 0.6% coverage on television news, 1.3% in daily newspapers and 1.3% in the weeklies.

In terms of the coverage of major topics, Aids received only 0.1% more airtime or column inches than environmental issues - clearly showing that media have lost their focus on this issue. The media should be playing a far greater role in terms of raising public awareness about Aids and covering stories with issues such as prevention and reducing the stigma associated with the disease, says Gregory Rule, a senior researcher at Media Tenor. Editors and journalists should constantly find new, innovative ways of reporting on Aids to ensure that it never becomes 'old news'.

The main protagonists the media featured when reporting on Aids this year shows society (32.1% of coverage) and the government (24.3%) as the leading actors. They were followed by foreign society (9.2%), political parties (7.2%) and economy/unions (6.3%).

President Thabo Mbeki, who has faced criticism over his government's slow progress in providing anti-retroviral drugs to those infected with HIV - in 1999 he controversially questioned the link between HIV and Aids and has also in the past questioned the extent to which the disease had spread in South Africa - is ranked seventh on the list with 4.5%. In terms of the 2002/03 television data, Mbeki ranked fourth on the list of protagonists showing that in terms of media focus, the attention has shifted from the president to the Health Minister.

The media's leading focus in Aids reporting has centred on issues of treatment (36% of all reports in 2004 and 36.2% in 2002/03 TV media). The research for 2004 shows that in terms of treatment, the use of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) (74%) has by far been the leading issue, with nutrition (9%) and the use of traditional medicines (7%) being the other main topics. This is hardly surprising since the issue of ARV treatment has dominated the Aids discourse in South Africa in recent years.

Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been particularly prominent in the media in this regard . Prevention was the next most reported-on issue on Aids in 2002/03, with 32.3% of reports addressing this issue. In 2004, however, issues of prevention made up only 14.8% of the coverage on Aids.

Has the media become less interested in stories about prevention? From the research it seems as though the media's attention has shifted to the government's policy on Aids, in particular on the national rollout of ARVs. The research shows further that the government and the president have been critically received in the media in terms of Aids policy. In Africa the social, economic and political impact of Aids is profound.

The media has a crucial role to play in the fight against the disease, but a major concern is that journalists do not have sufficient knowledge about the disease itself and its public policies, says Media Tenor managing director Wadim Schreiner. This leads to a lack of engagement on the part of the media. (Source: Mediatenor, http://www.mediatenor.co.za.)

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