ABSTRACT
Throughout Africa the current rate of infection from the HIV virus is frighteningly high. Yet, despite a decade or more of public education campaigns intended to contain the spread of the epidemic, there is little evidence to suggest that these messages have been particularly effective in persuading people to change the sexual practices that promote transmission of the virus. This chapter outlines an analysis of selected news coverage to explore how the problem of HIV/AIDS is socially constructed through categorizations employed by the print media. The subsequent discussion explores the implications that can be derived for text-based health education campaigns. We suggest that people's reluctance to adopt safer sex practices is, in part, attributable to the divergence between the model of rationality assumed in media coverage and the everyday, or common-sense, rationality persons actually use in understanding and negotiating their sexual conduct.
