April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: Understanding HIV Stigma Through Interviews With Seasoned Health Journalists
The research explores how journalists perceive their professional roles and their understanding of health disparities, specifically with regard to HIV/AIDS and the advocacy-based calls to eliminate HIV stigma. HIV disproportionately affects marginalized populations, including those living in the Deep South. Vulnerable populations also face stigma for sexual or gender orientation and for social, racial, or economic status.
To obtain insight into how seasoned health journalists perceive their work, we are partway through a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews with North American journalists who cover HIV (target sample size is 12). The journalists have all won awards for their health coverage and their work has been published in a range of reputable titles and major publications. Interviews allowed journalists to share their personal and lived experience of HIV reporting, and to reflect on how the environment they work and live in may influence their perspectives and attitudes about HIV.
Three research questions guide the study:
RQ1: How do experienced journalists perceive HIV stigma and journalism’s role in its perpetuation?
RQ2: How do experienced journalists describe the power imbalance of reporting on marginalized populations?
RQ3: What are the key reflections and lessons learned from their experience covering HIV news?
Interviews are being coded using three main categories. The first category is: awareness and understanding of HIV stigma and explores how the journalists understand HIV stigma and what kind of role they think journalists have in the elimination of HIV stigma. The second category is about understanding mediated HIV stigma, in particular, the consequences of the public health efforts to reduce stigma and their perceptions of social determinants of health in news coverage. The third category is about what influences journalists’ decision to include people living with HIV in news coverage.
Preliminary findings indicate that the interviewees feel pressure to assume a partnership role – a role that is not defined - when reporting on a health crisis. This unclear role speaks to the complex and complicated relationship between public health advocates and health journalists. Participants agree on the power of human narrative when reporting on medical issues and increasing public understanding on highly stigmatized conditions. However, they indicate the challenge of being inclusive due to HIV stigma and potential public backlash; specifically for sources from underprivileged communities with minimal support when/if they publicly disclose their HIV status. A power imbalance was also observed by journalists working in the developing regions who have minimal resources and sometimes a lack of freedom to report on stigmatized diseases such as HIV. An emerging theme in this study raised by two participants pointed to the need for journalists, particularly of the younger generation to be provided with trauma training to support them with dealing with and covering public health crises.
To obtain insight into how seasoned health journalists perceive their work, we are partway through a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews with North American journalists who cover HIV (target sample size is 12). The journalists have all won awards for their health coverage and their work has been published in a range of reputable titles and major publications. Interviews allowed journalists to share their personal and lived experience of HIV reporting, and to reflect on how the environment they work and live in may influence their perspectives and attitudes about HIV.
Three research questions guide the study:
RQ1: How do experienced journalists perceive HIV stigma and journalism’s role in its perpetuation?
RQ2: How do experienced journalists describe the power imbalance of reporting on marginalized populations?
RQ3: What are the key reflections and lessons learned from their experience covering HIV news?
Interviews are being coded using three main categories. The first category is: awareness and understanding of HIV stigma and explores how the journalists understand HIV stigma and what kind of role they think journalists have in the elimination of HIV stigma. The second category is about understanding mediated HIV stigma, in particular, the consequences of the public health efforts to reduce stigma and their perceptions of social determinants of health in news coverage. The third category is about what influences journalists’ decision to include people living with HIV in news coverage.
Preliminary findings indicate that the interviewees feel pressure to assume a partnership role – a role that is not defined - when reporting on a health crisis. This unclear role speaks to the complex and complicated relationship between public health advocates and health journalists. Participants agree on the power of human narrative when reporting on medical issues and increasing public understanding on highly stigmatized conditions. However, they indicate the challenge of being inclusive due to HIV stigma and potential public backlash; specifically for sources from underprivileged communities with minimal support when/if they publicly disclose their HIV status. A power imbalance was also observed by journalists working in the developing regions who have minimal resources and sometimes a lack of freedom to report on stigmatized diseases such as HIV. An emerging theme in this study raised by two participants pointed to the need for journalists, particularly of the younger generation to be provided with trauma training to support them with dealing with and covering public health crises.