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Accent on the POZitive? A Content Analysis of Biomedical AIDS Stories in
POZ Magazine
by
William P. Cassidy
Department of Communication
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
600 W. Blackhawk Dr. #1
Fort Atkinson, WI 53538
(262) 472-5022
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Submitted to the Science Communication Interest Group of the Association
for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Accent on the POZitive? A Content Analysis of Biomedical AIDS Stories in
POZ Magazine (1996-2000)
Abstract
This study examines biomedical AIDS stories published in POZ, a
magazine targeted at HIV-positive men and women in the U.S., during
1996-2000. A monthly stratified sample of 12 issues were content analyzed.
Results show that the overall tone of coverage was .94 on a scale of 0 to 2
(0=negative, 2=positive) and that medical or scientific (non-governmental)
sources, unaffiliated HIV-positive sources and AIDS activist sources
figured most prominently in coverage.
A short report written by Dr. Michael Gottleib and colleagues in
June 1981 appearing in the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention's (CDC) weekly newsletter noted that a rare parasitic lung
infection, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), had struck "five gay men,
all active homosexuals" in Los Angeles (Begley, 2001). Almost immediately
after the report's publication, Gottleib began receiving reports of similar
cases in San Francisco and New York (Brown, 2001).
The report signaled the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
Since then more than 25 million people worldwide have died from AIDS
or AIDS-related complications (Eberstadt, 2002). As of December 2002, 42
million people were estimated to have AIDS and 5 million people were newly
infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS during 2002 (UNAIDS, 2002).
The CDC reports 816,149 AIDS cases in the U. S. since the beginning of the
epidemic, and 467,910 deaths (CDC, 2002).
Despite the above and the fact that over 1 million Americans are
HIV-positive, there is a growing perception in the U. S. that AIDS is no
longer a cause for serious concern and has become a manageable chronic
illness (Ackerman, 2001a). A survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation found that the proportion of people who view AIDS as the leading
health problem in the nation has declined from 44% in 1995 to 26% in 2000
(Staples, 2001). Futhermore, the number of AIDS deaths in the U. S. has
declined each year since 1996 (CDC, 2002).
According to Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The
Coming Plague and a Newsday reporter, the media play a role in this
complacency. "The slowing down of AIDS reporting in the United States and
abroad," she says, "has eliminated all sense of urgency in the public, in
politicians, and in communities" (Ng, 1999).
Another major complaint regarding the media is that since the 1996
introduction of new drug therapies, which have played a significant part in
lowering death rates in the United States, coverage has been overly
optimistic (Cohen, 1997).
"Stories focus on the drop in deaths and ignore the steady increase
in infections," says Mario Cooper, founder of Leading for Live, a national
campaign launched by the Harvard AIDS Institute to raise HIV awareness
among African-American and Latin leaders. "The media treat AIDS like they
would a sports game, proclaiming victory and making people think there's
been a cure when nothing could be further from the truth" (Ng, 1999).
That complaint is the focus of this paper, which analyzes AIDS
coverage in POZ, a magazine targeted at the HIV-positive men and women in
the U.S., as well as their friends and families. This paper also seeks to
assess the tone of coverage in the years following the introduction of new
drug therapies. Experts have said that because, in part, of the tone of
media coverage, increases in AIDS-related deaths are likely to occur in the
U.S. (Ng, 1999). There is already some evidence this is happening. The CDC
reported that infection rates among gay men in San Francisco, a bellwether
city for AIDS trends, have significantly risen ("AIDS at 20," 2001).
Literature Review
Media Coverage of AIDS
The mainstream media were slow to publish reports about AIDS, even as
the number of cases grew. The first newspaper article, which appeared in
July 1981 in the New York Times, focused on eight deaths from PCP that had
occurred in a two-year period, Initially, the syndrome was termed GRID for
"gay-related immunodeficiency." At that time the syndrome was thought to be
confined to gay men (Ng, 1999). Many have attributed the early lag in
coverage to reluctance by the media to publish stories about homosexuals
(Altman, 1986; Baker, 1986; Nelkin, 1991; Shilts, 1987). As evidenced by
the initial name coined for AIDS, it was perceived by many in the media and
among the public as a "gay story."
Coverage expanded in 1983 following publication of a news release
based on an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA). Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, and author of the editorial, suggested that
routine household contact might spread AIDS. Thus, the editorial implied
that AIDS could infect the general population. With society at large now
deemed at potential risk, the news value of AIDS increased (Rogers, Dearing
& Chang, 1991).
A dramatic increase in coverage occurred in 1985 after actor Rock
Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS. Hudson's plight and that of Ryan White, a
13-year-old hemophiliac with AIDS who was barred from attending public
school the same year, personalized and humanized the epidemic and was
critical in changing journalists' perceptions of the epidemic (Rogers,
Dearing & Chang, 1991).
Although AIDS was now considered important news, Shilts (1987) wrote
that one aspect of the epidemic was ignored by the media: the federal
government's role in combating the virus. At this time, for example, the
presidential administration of Ronald Reagan had not launched a coordinated
AIDS prevention program. Reagan also did not discuss AIDS during the first
six years of his presidency (Perez & Dionisopoulos, 1995).
But, according to Shilts (1987) and Perez and Dionisopoulos (1995)
media coverage changed substantially with the October 1986 publication of
the Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
Written personally by Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, the 36-page
report called for AIDS education for children, advocated widespread condom
use and stated that any form of quarantine, or compulsory identification of
those infected with HIV would be useless in fighting the epidemic (Shilts,
1987). The report, according to Shilts (1987), "galvanized the media and
allowed AIDS to achieve the critical mass to make it a pivotal social issue
of 1987" (p. 587). Perez and Dionisopoulos (1995) assert the report greatly
influenced the "socio-political environment in which the AIDS crisis was
discussed" (p. 30).
In a content analysis of newspaper coverage before and after the
Surgeon General's report, Cassidy (2000) found substantial increases in the
number of stories, as well as the number of government, gay rights and AIDS
activists and HIV-positive sources cited by journalists. Medical sources
also made significantly more socio-political comments about AIDS following
the report's publication.
Other notable surges in coverage came when three-time National
Basketball Association most valuable player Earvin "Magic" Johnson
announced he was HIV-positive in November 1991 and after the death of
tennis great Arthur Ashe from AIDS-related complications in Februrary 1993
(Kaiser Family Foundation, 1996).
While most early studies of AIDS in the media were critical of the
coverage (Altman, 1986; Baker, 1986; Kinsella, 1989; Nelkin, 1991; Shilts,
1987), more recent studies have documented a decrease in the number of
stories reported.
For example, Agoston (1996) in her examination of AIDS coverage in
the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, found that the
number of AIDS stories published decreased almost every year between 1987
(when the number of stories hit their peak) and 1994. The exception came in
1991, when there was an increase from 726 to 879. However, by 1994 the
number of stories had dropped to 299.
Kim's (1998) content analysis of AIDS coverage in Time and Newsweek
reported similar results. Coverage peaked in 1987, dropped significantly
the following year, then remained steady until 1992 when the number or
stories increased to 253. The numbers declined substantially in 1993 and
continued to do so through 1995. However, the number of stories increased
again in 1996.
While there is a fairly rich stream of literature addressing
mainstream media coverage, little attention has been given to how the gay
and lesbian press reports on AIDS. Streitmatter (1995) gave mixed reviews
to the gay and lesbian press regarding coverage during the early stages of
the epidemic. He said the New York Native, a biweekly with minimal
resources, provided the most complete and thorough coverage and on several
occasions "scooped" the New York Times. Other publications receiving praise
from Streitmatter (1995) were the Washington Blade and Gay Community News.
On the other hand, Streitmatter (1995) said that two San Francisco
publications, the Bay Area Reporter and the San Francisco Sentinel, failed
to adequately cover AIDS because they feared losing advertising revenues
from bathhouses, even though these establishments were described by the
medical community as "death camps" (p. 254). The Advocate, often referred
to as the "Time or Newsweek of the gay community," with a circulation
triple that of any other gay publication, was also criticized by
Streitmatter (1995). He said the magazine initially ignored the epidemic
even though its associate editor was one of the first AIDS fatalities.
Instead, The Advocate, Streitmatter (1995) said, focused on gay culture and
politics.
There have been no empirically-based studies addressing how the gay
and lesbian press covers AIDS. This paper seeks to remedy this oversight by
examining how POZ reports on the epidemic.
History of POZ
From March 1994 when the first issue appeared on newsstands, (then)
publisher Sean Strub had definite goals for the magazine. "We want to be
entertaining, useful and challenging to my parents in Iowa or to my
siblings who want to know how to handle issues," he said. "We want POZ to
have the readability of People, the literacy of The New Yorker and the
cutting-edge information of the New England Journal of Medicine" (Hochwald,
1994, p. 35).
The enormous impact of AIDS on the gay community vaulted gay and
lesbian issues into the public eye. But, this was a steep price to pay of
visibility. According to Streitmatter (1995) "For many gay men…far too much
of life had become devoted to visiting sick friends, attending memorial
services and reading about the latest research dead end" (p. 319). POZ was
an effort to bring a more positive tone to coverage of the epidemic.
"If we believe ourselves to be terminally ill, we void everything
about our lives," said Strub, who has been HIV-positive for over 20 years
and sold his own life insurance to cover start-up costs for the magazine.
"Our love, passion, vision and vitality. Our hopes and dreams. We might as
well just plan the funeral and wait to die. But, if we are survivors we
have a future. Something to strive for. Places to go. People to meet.
Things to do. Love to share" (Strub, 1994, p. 60).
Despite the altruistic sentiment of such statements, Hicks (1997)
said other factors, such as a stable advertiser base contributed to the
start of the magazine. Tragically, he noted that the number of those
affected by AIDS also had to grow large enough to sustain a
national-circulation magazine.
Streitmatter (1995) said profiles of HIV-positive men and women who
remained active and productive quickly became the magazine's trademark.
Other sections of POZ include new treatment options and research
developments, and columns on living with HIV and AIDS. During the early
years the magazine also regularly reported on Strub's health, complete with
the results of his latest blood work and analysis by two doctors, who
sometimes disagreed on treatment.
However, POZ is not without its critics. Burkett (1995) said that
while the articles in the magazine offer hope to those infected, to the
uninfected the message is that an HIV-positive diagnosis isn't a huge
problem. But, the most vehement attacks on the magazine have come because
of its advertisers. Although many "mainstream" companies advertise in POZ,
some of its biggest advertisers are companies known as viaticals, which
offer AIDS sufferers cash for their life insurance policies (Streitmatter,
1995). Critics said it was unnerving that while the editorial content of
the magazine offered optimistic messages, some of the major advertisers
"trafficked in death futures" (Burkett, 1995, p. 139).
POZ began as a bimonthly and first turned a profit in 1997 (Kerr,
1998). The magazine, with a circulation of 100,000, has undergone some
tough times in recent years. Advertising revenue has dropped 50% since
1999. The magazine let go of one-third of its staff in 2001 and in that
year also began reducing the number of pages in each edition (Smith, 2003).
However, POZ, which is currently published 10 times a year, remains free
for anyone who is HIV-positive and can't pay the subscription fee ("About
POZ", 2003).
News Sources
One way of assessing AIDS coverage in POZ is by studying the sources
used in the magazine's stories about AIDS. The sources journalists use are
important to study because they determine not only what information is
given to the public, but what image of society is presented (Soloski,
1989). Gans (1979) wrote that the sources used by journalists reflect
society's desire for moral order. Reese, Grant and Danielson (1994) believe
reliance on these elite sources restricts the views expressed and
implicitly defines which opinions and individuals are important.
It has been well established that government officials are the
sources used most frequently in news reports. For example, Sigal (1973) in
his content analysis of front page stories in the New York Times and
Washington Post found that 81.3% of the sources were government officials.
A similar study of regional and local newspapers reported that 55.4% of
sources were affiliated with some governmental body (Brown, Bybee, Wearden
& Straughan, 1987). A study of the sourcing patterns of national security
reporters found that U. S. government sources represented 73.3% of the
citations in these types of stories (Hallin, Manoff & Webble, 1993).
Bennett (1990) said that journalists base the range of views expressed in
their stories on the range of views expressed in mainstream government
debate about the topic of the story. Non-officials are included in stories
and editorials only when they express opinions already emerging in public
circles. Alexseev and Bennett (1995) reported that sustained governmental
conflict opened the "news gates" to broader political statements from
non-governmental social groups and organized interests.
Regarding sources in AIDS coverage, Colby and Cook (1991) said that
as the news value of AIDS increased, the epidemic was covered by multiple
reporters from multiple beats which allowed for a greater variety of
sources to be heard. However, Hallett and Canella (1994) found that the
Arizona Republic newspaper cited HIV-positive sources in only 20% of their
AIDS reports from 1986 through 1990. Cassidy (2000), as mentioned earlier,
found increases in the number of attributed comments by HIV-positive
sources in his study, but the percentage of comments attributed to these
sources rose to only 2.6%. A later study by Cassidy (2002) found that
HIV-positive public figures were the second most cited source type in
stories about the epidemic in 1995 and 1996 editions of Newsweek, Time, and
U. S. News & World Report.
Research Questions
This study seeks to analyze POZ's AIDS coverage by studying the
sources used in biomedical stories about the epidemic. Based on the above,
the following research question is posed:
RQ1: Which types of sources are most prominent in biomedical stories
about the AIDS epidemic in POZ?
This study is also interested in the tone of biomedical stories about
AIDS in POZ, especially since the magazine tries to bring a more positive
tone to its AIDS coverage (Burkett, 1995; Streitmatter, 1995; Strub, 1994).
The tone of coverage following the 1996 introduction of promising new drug
therapies known as protease inhibitors, is of particular interest. These
therapies have dramatically lowered AIDS death rates and given many AIDS
patients a higher quality of life (CDC, 2000).
The mainstream media have come under criticism for carelessly hyping
these advances. For example a 1997 Science article by Jon Cohen said:
A casual browser of recent newsstands might conclude that AIDS is now
all but cured. Last fall, the New York Times Magazine featured a cover
story headlined "When AIDS Ends." Newsweek's cover wondered about "The End
of AIDS?" and a Time cover toasted AIDS researcher David Ho as its "Man of
the Year." As these magazines attest, AIDS research had a banner year in
1996, making dramatic strides with potent new drug combinations…But, as
delighted as AIDS researchers are about the progress, a growing number are
concerned that many popular media stories cross the line that separates
hope from hype (p. 298).
In addition, previous research on mainstream media and AIDS (Cassidy,
2000; Kaiser Family Foundation, 1996; Rogers Dearing & Chang, 1991) has
shown that specific events can have a strong impact on coverage. However,
Cassidy (2002) found in his analysis of the three major newsmagazines that
coverage actually became slightly more negative in 1996 following the
introduction of protease inhibitors. Therefore, an additional research
question is advanced:
RQ2: What is the overall tone of biomedical stories about the AIDS
epidemic published in POZ after the introduction of protease inhibitors?
Methodology
Content analysis was used to answer the research questions. The time
period analyzed was January 1996 through December 2000. Protease inhibitors
were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December 1995 and
became readily available in early 1996. While acknowledging that changes in
coverage may not be immediate, the initial time period of this study seems
the logical starting point, as stories about trial studies of protease
inhibitors began appearing in 1995. Thus, the media was aware of the new
drugs before FDA approval and began covering their effectiveness shortly
thereafter. The staff and editorial content reductions at POZ are the
reasons for not including issues published in 2001 and 2002. Since
ostensibly nearly all stories in POZ are, at least indirectly, about AIDS,
and given that a major interest of this study is coverage after the
introduction of protease inhibitors, only biomedical AIDS stories were
studied. The definition of biomedical stories, as suggested by Cassidy
(2000) is: stories regarding scientific information and research findings
about AIDS, including its symptoms and the opportunistic infections
associated with AIDS. Also in this category are stories regarding the
medical treatments physicians give to their patients who are HIV-positive
or have AIDS.
A monthly stratified sample of 12 issues of POZ were analyzed. Lacy,
Riffe and Randle (1998) in a study of consumer magazines, found that when
sampling from a five-year period (like this study), a constructed year of
12 issues, with one issue selected randomly from among the issues in each
month, was a more efficient and accurate sample than 20 randomly selected
issues. While noting that articles about specific topics tended to vary
more than the other variables in their study, they reported that the
minimal efficiency standard (68% of sampled means within one standard
error of population mean and 95% within two standard errors of population
mean) was still reached on this variable with the 12 issue monthly
stratified sample.
The unit of analysis was the attributed comment (direct and indirect
quotes). The types of sources, taken from Cassidy (2000) were coded as: (1)
government (non-medical/appointed officials, (2) government (elected)
officials, (3) government (medical or scientific/appointed), (4) government
(unspecified), (5) medical and/or scientific (non-governmental), (6)
medical and/or scientific (unspecified), (7) public figures (HIV-positive),
(8) public figures (HIV-negative), (9) religious, (10) gay rights and AIDS
activists, (11) legal, (12) unaffiliated HIV-positive, (13) unaffiliated
HIV-negative, (14) corporate and (15) other. Definitions of the categories
are available from the author by request.
For RQ1, prominence was operationalized as how often a source type
was cited making attributed comments and where in a story a source was
first cited. Placing a source higher in a story gives it greater
importance, while the frequency of a source being cited is an indication of
the sources overall newsworthiness (Hallin, Manoff and Weddle (1993);
Massey, 1998). Sources were coded once per paragraph and the stories were
divided into blocks of three paragraphs, with the tenth graph through the
conclusion of a story serving as the fourth block. This is a slight
variation of methods used by Hallin, Manoff and Weddle (1993) and Massey
(1998), who divided stories into blocks of five paragraphs. The reason for
the change in this study is because Cassidy's (2002) analysis of articles
about AIDS in newsmagazines found that the mean story length was less than
eight paragraphs. Therefore dividing the stories into "shorter" blocks
seems more likely to yield richer information on prominence here.
To determine the tone of coverage, methodologies employed by Cassidy
(2002), guided by the earlier studies of the Kaiser Family Foundation
(1996) and Kim (1998) were utilized. The Kaiser Family Foundation (1996)
surveyed AIDS print and broadcast coverage from 1985 to 1996 and found that
during a typical week 48% of stories were optimistic and 23% pessimistic,
with the remaining 29% being neutral/ambiguous. Kim (1998) said coverage
became more negative was time went on. During the first time period of his
study (1982-1984) 31% of stories were deemed positive, with 15% negative.
However, in the final time period (1994-1996) only 11% of the stories were
positive, while 29% were negative.
For this study, attributed comments (direct and indirect quotes) were
also the unit of analysis in determining the tone of a story. Each
attributed comment made in a story was evaluated as to whether its tone was
positive, ambiguous or negative. The definitions of these categories are:
Positive: Comments regarding successful aspects of AIDS treatment and
research, including comments noting improvements in the quality of life for
those people with AIDS. Also included in this category are comments
regarding any declines in AIDS death rates.
Ambiguous: Comments that are neither positive or negative, or are
mixed (a combination of positive and negative).
Negative: Comments regarding problems and setbacks in AIDS treatment
and research, as well as those noting debilitating effects of the disease.
Also included in this category are comments regarding any increases in AIDS
death rates.
Each attributed comment in each AIDS story was coded into one of the
above three categories and given a score of 0 (negative), 1 (ambiguous) or
2 (positive). The number of attributed comments and scores in each category
were then tallied for each story and each story was given an attributed
comment score. This part of the coding procedure is similar to the one used
by Waldman and Devitt (1998) in their evaluation of newspaper photographs
of presidential candidates in the 1996 election.
Each story was also assessed for overall tone and given a score of 0
(negative), 1 (ambiguous) or 2 (positive). The two scores were then
combined to give each story a final score. Examining both the "nuts and
bolts" (attributed comments by sources) as well as the overall tone of
stories seems a more rigorous procedure than that employed by other studies.
The author served as the primary coder of this study. To determine
intercoder reliability, approximately 20% of the articles were coded by a
second trained coder. Using Scott's pi, the level of agreement was .92 for
source affiliation, .90 for attributed comment tone, .93 for story type
(whether or not a story was a biomedical AIDS story) and 1.00 for overall
story tone.
Results
A total of 100 stories were analyzed (N=100) in the 12 editions of
POZ sampled (M=8.33 biomedical AIDS stories per issue). The stories yielded
467 attributed comments (M=4.67) (see Table 1) made by 258 different
sources (M=2.58).
RQ1 asks which types of sources are most prominent in biomedical
stories about the AIDS epidemic in POZ? Table 1 shows that three source
types were most prominent in coverage: medical and/or scientific
(non-governmental) sources; unaffiliated HIV-positive sources, and; gay
rights and AIDS activists. Together these three source types accounted for
nearly 82% of the attributed comments made in the stories. Medical and/or
scientific (non-governmental) sources were the leading source type cited
with 199 attributed comments (M=1.99). Unaffiliated HIV-positive sources
were next, with 118 attributed comments (M=1.18), followed by gay rights
and AIDS activists with 64 attributed comments (M=.64).
Table 2 shows that of the three leading source types, attributed
comments by medical and/or scientific (non-governmental sources) tended to
be introduced earlier in a story than were unaffiliated HIV-positive and
gay rights and AIDS activist sources. Forty-six percent of the initial
attributed comments by medical and/or scientific (non-governmental) sources
came in the first three paragraphs of the story. Unaffiliated HIV-positive
sources were introduced in the first three paragraphs 39% of the time,
followed by gay rights and AIDS activists at 35%. Unaffiliated HIV-positive
sources and gay rights and AIDS activists were more likely to be introduced
in the second block of paragraphs (25% of both types) than were medical
and/or scientific (non-governmental) sources (21%). Gay rights and AIDS
activists were more likely to be introduced in the fourth block of
paragraphs (35%) than were unaffiliated HIV-positive sources (27%) and
medical and/or scientific (non-governmental) sources (23%). The stories
analyzed in the sample tended to be either quite short or very lengthy.
This, in part, accounts for the relatively high percentages of initial
attributed comments by these three source types coming in the fourth block
of paragraphs.
RQ2 asks what is the overall tone of biomedical stories about AIDS in
POZ?
Table 3 shows that the mean tone score of the 100 stories examined was .94
on a scale of 0 (negative) to 2 (positive)
Discussion
This study examined biomedical stories about the AIDS epidemic in
POZ published after the introduction of successful new drug therapies,
known as protease inhibitors. Therefore, it is not surprising that medical
and scientific sources were most prominent in coverage. These results are
similar to Cassidy's (2002) analysis of newsmagazine AIDS coverage during
1995-1996. However, another study looking at newspaper coverage of AIDS
during an earlier critical time period of the epidemic (1986-1987) found
that government (medical or scientific/appointed) sources were cited more
than any other source type (Cassidy, 2000). It seems that by the mid-1990s
journalists covering AIDS had a more thorough understanding of the epidemic
and realized which non-official sources were legitimate and did not feel
compelled to rely on government (medical or scientific/appointed) sources.
Unaffiliated HIV-positive sources also figured very prominently in
coverage in this study. This could be for two reasons. The first being that
POZ is targeted at HIV-positive individuals in the U.S. Therefore, it seems
logical that the voices of HIV-positive individuals would have a prominent
role. The second is that by the mid-90s the stigma associated with being
HIV-positive had decreased, making it easier for HIV-positive sources to
speak publicly. Interestingly, mainstream news magazines essentially
ignored unaffiliated HIV-positive sources until after the 1996 introduction
of protease inhibitor drugs (Cassidy, 2002), but these sources did not have
nearly as prominent a role in coverage as they do in POZ
Another notable difference in coverage here is the prominent voice
given to activists in POZ. According to Epstein (1996) AIDS activists
played a major role in developing the treatments for AIDS and also
pressured the medical establishment to use more pragmatic criteria in their
drug trials, as well as more diverse subject populations. This study
suggests, that as a result of these efforts, these sources gained "a place
at the table" in biomedical AIDS coverage, especially considering the minor
role such sources played in coverage during the early stages of the
epidemic (Cassidy, 2001).
Perhaps the most interesting results of this study center on the tone
of coverage in POZ. Many have complained that coverage became overly
optimistic or "too positive" following the introduction of protease
inhibitors (e.g. Cohen, 1997; Ng, 1999). However, the results here show
that coverage during this time in POZ could hardly be deemed "too
positive." This is even more surprising since it's inception, a major goal
of the magazine has been to bring a more positive tone to coverage
(Streimatter, 1995; Strub, 1994). In fact, the tone of coverage here (.94
on a scale of 0 to 2), was more negative than that in the mainstream
newsmagazines (1.17 on the same scale) examined by Cassidy (2002).
One of the reasons that coverage was found to be far from overly
optimistic could be due to the coding scheme of this study. Cohen (1997) in
his criticism of AIDS coverage after the introduction of protease
inhibitors notes that "casual browser[s]…might think that AIDS is now all
but cured." However, this study called for coders to closely analyze the
attributed comments of sources, as well as the overall tone of the text.
The coverage was not "casually browsed" over. Cohen (1997) also highlights
cover stories and headlines signaling the end of the AIDS epidemic and uses
them as evidence that coverage may have descended into hype. Variables such
as headlines and where in the magazine stories appeared were not used in
this analysis. But, perhaps they should have been. It is possible that only
after thorough, rigorous examination of the text of AIDS stories does one
realize that coverage is far from overly optimistic or positive. However,
many readers examine the text more causally, and instead, pay more
attention to things such as headlines, covers and photographs. So, perhaps
future studies should include these variables in analyzing coverage of the
AIDS epidemic. It would also be interesting to conduct a study comparing
coverage during the same time frame between mainstream media outlets and
publications such as POZ, and/or publications aimed at the gay community,
such as The Advocate.
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Table 1
Frequency of Attributed Comments by Source Type
(N=467)
Frequency Percent
Government (non-medical) 2 .4
Government (elected) 4 .8
Government (medical and/or
scientific) 29 6.2
Medical and/or scientific
(non-governmental) 199 42.6
Medical and/or scientific
(unspecified) 13 2.7
AIDS
activist 64
13.7
Legal 3 .6
Unaffiliated HIV-positive 118 25.3
Unaffiliated HIV-negative 9 1.9
Corporate 11 2.3
Other 15 3.5
Note. There were no attributed comments made by four source types:
Government (unspecified), public figures (HIV-positive); public figures
(HIV-negative) and religious.
Table 2
Paragraphs in Which First Attributed Comment Occurred for Three Prominent
Source Types
(N=258)
Source Type Graphs 1-3 Graphs 4-6 Graphs 7-9 Below Graph 10
Medical and/or
Scientific
(non- 46% 21 10
23
governmental)
Unaffiliated 38 25 10
27
HIV-positive
AIDS 35 25 5
35
Activist
Note. Percent of first attributed comments in each block of paragraphs.
Percentages across total 100%.
Table 3
Tone of Coverage in POZ, 1996-2000
Number of Stories Tonescore (Mean) SD
100 .94
.45
Note. Scale of 0=negative to 2=positive.