HIV/AIDS and Gender Baseline Study

The HIV/AIDS and Gender Baseline Study forms part of the Media Action Plan (MAP) on HIV/AIDS and Gender led by the Southern African Editors Forum (SAEF). The study was conducted by Gender Links and the Media Monitoring Project and covered 118 media houses in 11 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The study monitored 37,001 news items over one month in 2005.

The study found that only 3% of all the items focused on, or mentioned, the pandemic. This varied from 19% in Lesotho, to only 1% in Mauritius and 2% in South Africa, which has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS globally, estimated at over 5 million.

People living with HIV/AIDS constituted a mere 4% of all sources, compared to 42% of government officials and officials representing international organisations. PLHIV were most often used as sources in Swaziland (10%), Tanzania (7%) and South Africa (6%). In Malawi, no PLHIV were used as sources in the period under review.

Despite the disproportionate burden of the pandemic borne by women, who constitute the highest proportion of those living with HIV as well as provide most of the care, women constitute only 39% of sources overall. Men’s voices dominate in all topic categories, except for care.

A break down of topics shows that the gender dimensions and major drivers of the pandemic are not well reported on. Although the bulk of the coverage (40%) centred on prevention, sexual power relations, mother to child transmission, intergenerational sex, gender based violence and cultural practices as sub-topics of prevention received limited coverage.

Care and support received a mere 16% of total coverage, reinforcing the general tendency in society to take women’s work for granted. Within this topic category, orphans and vulnerable children received the greatest attention, with home-based care (often a euphemism for the unwaged work of women) receiving only minimal mention.

In the area of treatment the media focus remains on ARVs (32%) and the medical aspects of AIDS (27%), with positive living, the role of nutrition, and where to go for help receiving only marginal mention.

The impact of the epidemic received a mere 5% of coverage, suggesting that HIV/AIDS continues to be viewed more as a health than development-related matter.

On the positive side, the report found that there have been a number of improvements in media reporting. These include fewer blatant stereotypes (10%) and increased sensitivity to language. Feature stories on HIV/AIDS are higher (10%) than in general coverage (5%) and that a high number of stories are original stories produced or added to by newsroom journalists.

The research showed that in Southern Africa, there are more women journalists reporting on HIV (45%) than in most other beats and in most instances women journalists were more likely to access female sources. This is an important argument for striving to achieve gender balance at all levels and in all beats of newsrooms, although the research also suggests that both women and men would benefit from gender awareness training.

Building on these strengths, the next phase of MAP will be to provide assistance to media houses that elect to develop and implement HIV/AIDS and gender policies, based on a handbook and pilot projects conducted by Gender Links with the Times of Zambia, Kaya FM in South Africa and the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation.

Facilitators in each country will be working closely with MISA and SAEF chapters in the policy roll, with the aim of ensuring that 80% of newsrooms have HIV/AIDS and gender policies by 2008.