HIV and AIDS

Media and the 16 Days Campaign 2006 by MMP

The coverage of The 16 Days Campaign in Gauteng media coverage, including e-tv and SABC 3 prime time news, was reasonable good in most aspects. Some improvements could be made in terms of reporting on woman and child abuse.

The 2006 monitoring revealed:

There were more male sources (60%) than female sources (40%) in the items that were monitored;
SABC 3 had the highest ratio of female to male sources with 60% sources being female. The Weekender, on the other hand, lacked any female sources in stories that related to the Campaign and woman and child abuse;
At 17% each, the most common roles for sources was that of “Government officials and politicians” and “Civil Society”;
Where the sex of the journalist was known, 62% of the times the stories were written by female journalists;
Topics that related to gender-based violence accounted for 36% of all stories monitored. Child abuse stories accounted for 16% of all the stories;
16 Days Campaign or campaigns relating gender issues accounted for 13% of the stories;
The most supported journalistic ethic was “Woman and child abuse are fundamental human rights violations”. The most violated principle was “Minimise harm”;
3% of stories made a link between HIV/Aids and woman and child abuse
56% of all stories monitored mentioned the 16 Days Campaign

MAP HIV regional findings by MMP

This report covers the regional findings of the HIV and AIDS and Gender Baseline Study carried out as part of the Media Action Plan on HIV and AIDS and Gender (MAP) led by the Southern African Editors’ Forum (SAEF).

The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) that leads the monitoring and evaluation arm of MAP conducted the monitoring, analysed the data and produced the results for the region as well as the individual countries.

NOTE: This file is large and slow to download.

MAP HIV and AIDS and Gender Baseline Study by Sandra

This report covers the South African findings of the HIV and AIDS and Gender Baseline Study, carried out as part of the Media Action Plan on HIV and AIDS and Gender (MAP), led by the Southern African Editors’ Forum (SAEF). The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) that leads the monitoring and evaluation sub sector of MAP conducted the monitoring, analysed the data and produced the results for the South Africa report. Gender Links (GL) produced the qualitative findings and wrote the country report.

The monitoring included 118 media houses in twelve Southern Africa countries, for a total of 15 days staggered over one month in October and November 2005. The South African monitoring covered 20 media houses.

Shaping the Conflict: Factors Influencing The Representation of Conflict Around HIV/AIDS Policy in the South African Press by Sandra

Prior research suggests there is a lack of editorial-level policy thinking around HIV/AIDS coverage in South African media institutions. At the same time, constraints of time, capacity and resources, common in the commercial newsroom, mean it is often ill-equipped to deal more comprehensively with the complex effects of the pandemic in the country. A quantitative study, conducted as a sister study to this, shows the press took a strongly critical position in relation to government health policy on anti-retrovirals (ARVs) during the monitored periods (March-May 2002 and March-May 2003). Given the relative complexity of a public ARV treatment programme, the lack of resources and capacity in the newsroom, as well as the lack of widespread editorial-level policy thinking on HIV/AIDS coverage, how is it that the press came to represent a position so strongly in opposition to government policy? In the context of an overview of the quantitative findings, this paper explores several possible reasons that emerged during interviews conducted with key informants in the field of HIV/AIDS and the media.