Description
Book SynopsisIn the 80's and 90's it was Designing Women and The Real World, today it's Grey'sAnatomy and How to Get Away with Murder. 35 years since HIV hit prime time it remains a hot topic for TV producers to include in storylines. While the motivationbehind creating an HIV narrative is sometimes the disseminate facts about HIV and STIs, farmore often it is the sexy ratings a show can receive by including a taboo or controversial topic. As a result, while some education is provided to audiences, far more shows are found only perpetuating misinformation and stereotypes. As a result viewers, young populations especially,continue to believe they are not at risk.HIV on TV: Popular Culture's Epidemic offers a discussion of how HIV haspermeated popular culture. News broadcasts, movies, television shows, even musiclyrics have imbedded messages about HIV. Examining over 35-years of the HIV evolution on television this book offers a critical lens for examining how medial topics, specifically HIV, are cov
Trade ReviewThe author of this volume provides a deeply engaging and enriching account of HIV/AIDS (mis)representations and (mis)constructions in the popular media. Well-researched and beautifully written, this book provides a robust framework—theoretical and methodological—for understanding how our notions of illness and disease are socially constructed and influenced by the media. -- Arvind Singhal, Samuel and Edna Marston Endowed Professor of Communication, The University of Texas at El Paso
The arguments and insights in this manuscript are both new and important. A researcher in AIDS representation myself, I have been shocked and disappointed by the lack of information and—crucially—cultural analysis of the AIDS epidemic. This work offers an important contribution to a conversation in which there are relatively few participants. -- Aimee Pozorski, Central Connecticut State University
HIV on TV: Popular Culture’s Epidemic demands that readers take popular culture representations of HIV and AIDS seriously. In addition to providing a rich history of how HIV has been portrayed in television and film, Johnson offers her candid assessments about how media creators must repair the problems that continue to persist in popular culture depictions of HIV. The book offers the opportunity for scholars who study media, health, rhetoric, popular culture, sexuality, and/or journalism to combine various threads of thought and enhance how they envision popular culture as a form of education. -- Jimmie Manning, Northern Illinois University
Table of ContentsIntroduction Part One - Teaching HIV Chapter One: Television as Teacher Chapter Two: Conceptualizing HIV in the Media Part Two - Previously On…. HIV on Television Chapter Three: This Just In, HIV in the News Chapter Four: Oh the Drama! The Many Sides of HIV in Dramatic Shows Chapter Five: HIV as a Punchline: Comedic Narratives on Stage and Screen Chapter Six: Didactic Dichotomy of HIV Narratives Part Three - AIDS: The Body, The People, The Perceptions Chapter Seven: Characters and the “AIDS Body” Chapter Eight: Negative in Life, Positive on Screen Chapter Nine: “Those People Are at Risk” Part Four - Stay Tuned for Clips of Next Season Chapter Ten: Overcoming the Barriers and Moving Forward Appendix 1: Show Listing
