Agents and Structures: Journalists and the Constraints on AIDS Coverage

Abstract

Many media scholars have used the news coverage of AIDS as a case study in the operation and effects of the mass media. This research has largely focused on interpretations of textual content, often with an underlying assumption that media workers have either distorted or misrepresented AIDS. However, the stream of media analysis which focuses on the structuring properties of newswork constraints would argue that the media content is in part a reflection of the process of newswork. This paper is organized into three sections: (a) an overview of the effects of newswork practices on content; (b) a survey of early social science research on the media coverage of AIDS; and (c) an application of theories on newswork to the results of open-ended interviews with journalists who covered the “AIDS beat.” In sum, the research finds that journalists, who work with newswork constraints daily, are somewhat aware of the effects of these limitations. However, they may also underestimate such effects, preferring to believe that their own media output is able to rise above such structural processes.