ABSTRACT
The opening of the Tsinghua-Bayer Public Health and HIV/AIDS Media Studies Program and Center in Beijing in November 2004 coincided almost exactly with the UN-endorsed World AIDS Day. The center is inside a dynamic media and communications department in one of China’s foremost universities and is partly funded by the pharmaceutical company now known as Bayer Schering Pharmaceuticals as one of its many corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects.1 The opening was an exciting time: I was attending as I was curious about how the multiple meanings and interests surrounding HIV would converge through the center and determine the shape of the event. It was also a welcome change to the months I had spent in dusty archives gathering Chinese media reports about HIV/AIDS in other countries. As I waited for proceedings to start, I circulated and talked to other attendees, most of whom worked for international organizations or NGOs, or were local journalists. I listened as one NGO worker bubbled with excitement about the recent film interview she had conducted with the Chinese Minister of Health, Wang Longde. She “discovered” that he was one of the few Chinese officials able to correctly list the transmission paths of HIV and explained to me that a Chinese official openly demonstrating his knowledge of HIV within China was a big deal. His response would be uploaded to the website of the organization she worked in, which had also made a Public Service Announcement (PSA) starring basketball stars Yao Ming and the HIV-positive Magic Johnson earlier that year.2 The idea behind this was for local people to watch and learn about HIV/AIDS. The same organization later helped produce the Oscar-winning documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District as well as other documentaries and PSAs starring Hong Kong and Chinese celebrities Jacky Chan, Pu Cunxin, Peng Liyuan, and others.
