HIV AIDS, health, and the media in China : imagined immunity through racialized disease

HIV/AIDS is an increasingly serious problem in China, with an increasing number of new cases every year. As a result, HIV organizations have boomed, with both state and non-governmental organisations responding to the threat with campaigns to increase public awareness of the disease, utilising the media as the primary tool to reshape citizens' understandings and views of HIV/AIDS. This book explores how HIV/AIDS is portrayed in China's media. It argues that, despite increasing education campaigns, media coverage and social and academic openness towards HIV/AIDS, many Chinese of the majority Han ethnic group regard infection as a distant possibility, believing themselves to be immune and infection a problem only for certain non-Han ethnic groups with perceived lower moral standards, in particular black Africans. The book explores how HIV/AIDS is reported, analysing the language used in constructing and encoding the health narrative, its subjects, and ideas about the disease. It demonstrates how China's media frequently employs negative events to present the most extreme possibilities of poverty, danger, disasters and disease, with black Africa portrayed as an antiquated, distant and socioculturally and politically backward place, uniquely unsuitable for the containment of disease, in contrast with the progressive, scientifically sophisticated and morally upstanding Chinese. It argues that this discourse has had the effect of distancing many Chinese from the perceived possibility of infection, thus compromising the effectiveness of public health campaigns on HIV/AIDs. It suggests that the key to combating the spread of the disease lies in challenging the racialised narratives through which the disease is portrayed in China's media, rather than simply by aiming to educate greater numbers of people.

Approximately 90% of urban HIV/AIDS education in China occurs indirectly through non-specialist media reports. Many of these reports use images of extreme suffering and poverty to communicate an understanding of who gets HIV, why and how. This book explores an important aspect of how HIV/AIDS is communicated in China’s print media, posters, websites and television, suggesting that its association with Africa and Africans – portrayed as a distant and backward land and people – has impacted understandings of HIV/AIDS. It demonstrates how, in China’s media, Africans are frequently used to embody the most extreme possibilities of poverty and disease, in contrast with the progressive, scientifically sophisticated Han Chinese, which has encouraged the urban public to develop 'imagined immunity' to HIV.

By illustrating how HIV/AIDS is portrayed as a non-Han and racialized disease affecting specific bodies, races and places, the author argues that this discourse has had the effect of distancing many Chinese from the perceived possibility of infection, thus compromising the effectiveness of public health campaigns on HIV/AIDS. The book suggests that the key to combating the spread of HIV/AIDS lies in challenging the ways in which the disease is portrayed in China’s media, rather than simply by continuing with the current strategy to educate more people.

At The Intersections Of Hiv/aids : Power, Disease, Others, And China's Media -- China's Media : Telling And Knowing Hiv/aids -- Differentiating Understandings : Hei Black And Blackness, Race, And Place -- Hei : Africa, Africans, And Hiv/aids -- Yuanshi : Presenting The Origin And Primitive Circumstances Of Hiv/aids In Africa -- Kexue : Scientism And Hiv/aids. Johanna Hood. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. HIV/AIDS is an increasingly serious problem in China. This book explores HIV/AIDS, its portrayal in China’s media, and the implications for public health policy. It discusses how many Chinese wrongly believe themselves to be immune, with infection only a possibility for other ethnic groups with perceived lower moral standards. HIV/AIDS is an increasingly serious problem in China. This text explores HIV/AIDS, its portrayal in China's media, and the implications for public health policy. It discusses how many Chinese wrongly believe themselves to be immune, with infection only a possibility for other ethnic groups with perceived lower moral standards