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INCREASED LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING OF HIV/AIDS AMONG JOURNALISTS
AND MEDIA PROFESSIONALS
A PROJECT
OF
THE
UNITED NATIONS EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC, CULTURAL ORGANIZATION
(UNESCO)
http://aids-africa.unon.org/events/Dr.Patrick%20of%20Kenya%20doc.doc
“THE IMPACT
OF CULTURE AND RELIGION ON HIV/AIDS REPORTING”
PRESENTED
AT
A
REGIONAL WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN JOURNALISTS
PAPER PRESENTED
BY:
PRF. P.R. KENYA
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR
INTERNATIONAL
CENTRE FOR HEALTH
INTERVENTIONS
AND RESEARCH IN AFRICA (ICHIRA)
P.O. Box 59921,
Nairobi, Kenya.
5TH
MARCH 2002
Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a tragedy of devastating
proportions in Eastern and Southern Africa. The lives of
infected individuals, their families and communities, the
companies and agencies they work for, and the society as a whole
are all affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Today over
70% of all the people now living with HIV in the world, 28.1
million men, women and children – live in Africa south of the
Sahara, and 83% of the world’s AIDS deaths have been in this
region. Although Africa accounts for a mere 10% of the global
population it is home to the largest number of PLWHAs. The year
2001 recorded an additional 3.4 million new HIV infections in
Africa.
Since the
very start of the epidemic, HIV in sub-Saharan Africa has mostly
spread through sex between men and women. However, women are
more heavily affected in Africa (where they constitute 55% of
all infections) than in other regions. Four out of five
HIV-positive women in the world live in Africa.
An even
higher proportion of the children living with HIV in the world
is in Africa – an estimated 87%. There are a number of reasons
for this. First, more women of childbearing age are
HIV-infected in Africa than elsewhere. Secondly, Africa women
have more children on average than those in other continents, so
one infected woman may pass the virus on to a higher than
average number of children. Thirdly, nearly all children in
Africa are breast-fed. Breast-feeding is thought to account for
between a third and half of all HIV transmission from
mother-to-child. Finally, new drugs, which help reduce
transmission from mother-to-child before and around childbirth,
are far less readily available in developing countries,
including those in Africa, than in the industrialized world.
In Kenya, at least 250, 000 HIV + women give birth each year and
going by current data at least 30% of them infect their babies
with HIV resulting in about 75,000 HIV + children. Making
Nevirapine available to HIV+ mothers will cut the number of new
infections by about half. This could save the lives of over
35,000 babies.
Perhaps
there is no other news-subject that has confounded media house
mandarins, editors and field reporters in recent times than
HIV/AIDS. There are many reasons for this. At the onset of
HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa in the early 1980s, the talk about
HIV/AIDS was relegated to medical professionals and was only
reported in the news media only as a sensational story with
potential only of attracting audience and customers. The media
also became an important vehicle of transmitting misinformation
on how contagious HIV/AIDS was. Indeed all HIV/AIDS patients
throughout the first decade of the epidemic were treated like
Ebola patients due to this misinformation.
1.1 Function of the Media
The primary
objectives and responsibilities of journalists, men or women in
the current HIV/AIDS pandemic are to educate the public on how
to protect itself from the HIV infection by highlighting the
modes of transmission and methods available for protection and
hence prevention and control of the pandemic.
Those whose
HIV status is negative to be encouraged to retain this status,
and to support those whose status is positive by urging them to
careful so as not to spread the virus and to maintain hope
through positive living. The media professionals have been
viewed as being influential in building awareness across
different sectors of society on HIV/AIDS and the importance of
being careful in sexual behaviour and practices.
Providing
accurate, factual information to the public about HIV/AIDS.
Research has
shown that in a number of countries, there are high levels of
awareness on the existence of HIV/AIDS (over 90 percent in some
countries). However, some misinformation exists, what is the
definition of awareness? If awareness is having ever heard of
words such as “HIV” or “AIDS” these would not be necessary and
sufficient for behaviour change. For behaviour change to take
place, knowledge about transmission modes and the main methods
of prevention in Africa (1) Abstention, (2) Reduction of sexual
partners, (3) Faithfulness to ones partner and (4) Condom use
must be very high in the population (above 80 percent).
Journalists, women or men, as a standard procedure, need to
present articles or news items on HIV/AIDS containing essential
information and data on prevention methods, including
information on where to seek assistance such as testing and
counselling.
Advocacy for
accountability and responsibility in the HIV/AIDS prevention and
management arena.
There is a
great deal of vulnerability inherent in any population faced
with devastation such as that facing people living with HIV/AIDS
on daily basis. In the first place a gap exists in the
provision of treatment that society can depend on. It is easy
to take advantage of this situation and exploit this gap by
introducing medications of no proven value. The media however,
has to stand vanguard to the needs and interests of those who
are affected and infected with HIV/AIDS to ensure that this type
of situation does not rise. Many gaps or opportunities of
exploiting those infected and affected in our communities exist,
for instance the property left for orphans and widows by their
deceased parents or husbands respectively can easily be taken
away from them by relatives through manipulation in a society
where the media is dormant or ignorant about such type of
possibilities.
Studies and
surveys indicate that the media has played a key role in
achieving the present levels of HIV/awareness on the continent.
The radio has been particularly singled out as the most
accessible of all media channels in Africa followed by
newspapers and television. However the terminology “awareness”
used in the context of a health problem needs definition. It is
important to note that the much-publicized “high AIDS awareness”
is a misnomer. Strictly speaking from an epidemiological
viewpoint, awareness must include not only knowing that a
disease exists but also knowing how it is spread and how it can
be prevented. But most important of all is having a high index
of perception of risk to be able to apply that body of knowledge
to change behaviour and avert ill health.
The first
reports on HIV/AIDS that begun to filter in Africa through
mainly the Western media sort to ascribe blame to certain
subcultures or races in the world. The noble epidemiological
analysis of infection patterns and trends of HIV/AIDS in a
population were misconstrued to mean for example that HIV/AIDS
was a homosexual disease. When in fact the good intentions of
the epidemiologists was purely for informing policy and
programme implementers on the likely intervention measures to
curb the spread of the epidemic.
Because
HIV/AIDS was entirely a new health problem in the world and
Africa in particular, any sensational reports claiming to reveal
its origins reverberated throughout the continent. Cases of
HIV/AIDS patients in Africa could therefore not be readily
accepted given the many misconceptions that were abound
regarding those at risk of contracting the disease.
A major
problem with AIDS education and awareness programmes in Africa
is that they do not address issues that affect learners and the
target audience. They focus on scientific messages about the
cause of HIV/AIDS and the origin.
This tends
to be academic and relevant only to the Western personal
behaviour, this is superficial and ineffective. It does not
include the traditional view, which interprets the disease and
its causes in terms of the cultural world of taboos, obligations
and witchcraft. Sickness and disease are almost invariably
considered to have external causes not the viruses, germs and
microbes identified by medical science. Very often, the external
cause is thought to be an ill-willed, malevolent human agent who
uses the powers and forces at the disposal of a witch or
sorcerer. The external cause can also lie with ancestral
spirits offended by the violation of certain taboos or failure
to observe rituals.
In the case
of HIV/AIDS, this traditional interpretation of a sickness and
its cause draws strength from the inability of Western science
to come up with a cure. The deep-rooted view that sorcery and
witchcraft are the root causes of HIV/AIDS manifests itself not
just among the rural people, but also in those from urban and
well-to-do settings. The educated are no strangers to it,
neither are those who follow the major world religious
traditions. People from all classes and categories seek to
discover the source of the ill will that brought sickness in the
belief that once this cause has been identified; appropriate
remedial action can be taken.
None of the
educational and awareness programmes takes this cultural
perspective into account. Indeed none seeks to interpret HIV
infection in terms, not of the malevolence of external witches
but rather the witchcraft (evil) that is within African belief
systems. Studies indicate that no educational programme in
eastern and southern Africa takes sorcery or witchcraft
seriously and uses this to encourage pupils to protect
themselves against HIV infection.
To date no
attempt has been made to approach the problem from within.
Consequently, there is lack of headway, with the frequent
complaint that wide diffusion of knowledge about HIV/AIDS is not
leading to behaviour change. A critical problem posed by
HIV/AIDS education regards educators. It has been observed that
they shy away from dealing with the basic issues of adolescent
sexuality. When they broach the subject, they are only content
with an abstract presentation of themes and principles. In the
process, the educators are unaware that there is a communication
gap between them and young people.
The
traditional African and even the modern religions’ gender
ascription of roles for men and women in society continue to
impact on the effective media coverage of HIV/AIDS issues on the
continent. It is a fact that women are disproportionately
affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa, indeed over 53% of all those
living with HIV/AIDS on the continent are women. Another large
number is either affected as spouses of those living with
HIV/AIDS or as care givers to those suffering from the epidemic.
Yet not many women are in positions of influence either as
newsmakers or media professionals. They continue to be under
represented on the editorial boards of leading media houses in
Africa. More often than not issues on gender or even HIV/AIDS
for that matter have to pass through the male dominated
editorial boards before seeing the light of day.
It must be
noted here that the media is part of a society where the
traditional role of women in the home was clearly defined. When
women continue to have problems accessing higher education and
by extension college training a process is already underway to
undermine their voice in the media. The media houses are obliged
to only recruit from the so few qualified cadres of women given
the structural obstacles that they face in acquiring an
education. The inherent failure of the African education systems
to provide an enabling environment for girls to perform better
in natural and health sciences aggravate the situation.
In Africa
HIV/AIDS is mainly a sexually transmitted disease. Matters to do
with sex are traditionally taboo topics in the traditional
African communication. They are thought to be private subjects
not befitting public discourse. While sex is and will always
remain a private affair, its direct product- HIV/AIDS is of
increasing public concern given its far reaching and devastating
effects on societies in Africa. This is where the dilemma for
the media lies. You can not for instance discuss HIV/AIDS
without mentioning sexual behaviours of those at risk of
contracting HIV.
The print
media can easily get away with discussions of intimate sex
topics since theirs is an impersonal channel. However, those in
the audio and visual electronic media have an uphill task. Thus
they have to delicately balance the accepted social etiquette of
public speaking by their largely conservative demographically
mixed African audience and the true and saddening picture of
HIV/AIDS and its direct link to sexual behaviours in society.
Broaching
the subject of sex and condom use in relation to HIV/AIDS on TV
or radio can especially be very discomforting for a mixed
audience of a visiting father or mother in law together with the
son or daughter in law and his/her adolescent children in a
family living room. It is therefore not uncommon for the hosts
to switch off the channel on which such a programme is being
aired to avert a sense of guilt and shame
The cultural
context in which HIV/AIDS reporting is done is of utmost
importance. In societies where the inherent gender inequalities
have undermined access of women to certain kinds of media,
particular attention should be paid to the choice of media and
the language of communication.
It is true
that many women have no ready access to newspapers compared to
men. Many women in many African countries of Africa have more
access to the radio than to other channels of media. But even
then, men still control or are the owners of those radios and
their wives in many instances only listen to them at the mercy
of their husbands. The dependency of women on men economically
undermines their access to some of the available media channels.
The low
literacy levels of women mean that the language of communication
has to be factored in this reality. The many official languages
of communication in leading media houses are out of reach of
common people and more so women. Local dialects and languages as
a means of preaching the HIV/AIDS gospel must be used as a
panacea to the communication problem.
Cultures
find their expression through language. The experience so far
from HIV/AIDS reporting indicates that the media has unwittingly
participated in the stigmatization of the people living with
HIV/AIDS. Certain words even in the English language when used
in relation to HIV/AIDS convey negative attitudes. For instance
the use of words like scourge and plague in reference to
HIV/AIDS paints the disease in a negative light and stigmatizes
the infected. Likewise, referring to the infected as victims or
carriers of HIV is insulting. In Africa, some communities have
coined words to refer to HIV/AIDS. In Uganda for instance, they
refer to it as ‘slim.’ While this might suit the Ugandan
situation, there are worries that this leads to a lot of
suspicion whenever a slim person happens to be in the audience.
Like the Nigerians say, “An old woman is never at ease when dry
bones are mentioned in a proverb.”
The media in
Africa are thought to be guilty of spreading moral panic.
Although as mentioned elsewhere in this paper some information
is derived from professionals, the way it is reported may single
out certain sections of the population for blame.
In this
regard, moral panic is orchestrated when patterns of behaviour
private or public come to be selected by the mass media as
unusual or symbolic of a threat to the fabric of society. In
Kenya for instance, social groups who do not practice male
circumcision like the Luo or who practice polygamy and or wife
inheritance have been identified as constituting special risk
groups in the context of HIV/AIDS and face the danger of being
targeted by the media for special treatment. In this perspective
the mass media would be seen as a crucial component of an
interactive relationship between event, news making and
political and professional actions that stigmatize such social
groups through amplification of fears associated with HIV/AIDS.
It is
therefore a Herculean task for the media to balance facts as in
the practices that may enhance the spread of AIDS and which even
the national HIV/AIDS strategic plans of many countries in
Africa aim to eradicate and the deep feelings of attachment to
those practices by their audience. This deep sense of belonging
expressed through cultural rites is a casualty of blanket
condemnation of cultural practices. Indeed people become
defensive when the subject is broached. Politicians particularly
take advantage of the people’s traditional sense of belonging
and stage mock popularity contests manifested in their public
pronouncements in support of these practices. Yet they are the
darling of the media and they will often get better media
coverage on such issues further complicating the war against
AIDS.
It is also
vital to note that while programme managers and government
operatives are quick to condemn certain practices that are
always taken up as news items by the media no mention is made of
the positive cultural practices that help stem the ravages of
the epidemic. It is a fact that to date the leading care
providers to those living with HIV/AIDS are the traditional care
givers i.e. the extended family and the community. No credit is
given for these gestures.
So far there
is no attempt to incorporate the traditional African approaches
of dealing with disasters. There is a body of knowledge in
Africa traditional coping mechanism like the use of aunts, aged
people and the sages to counsel and guide members of the
community. These must be explored since the modern counseling
schemes may not be suitable where a large number of people need
counseling services in remote corners of the various countries
of Africa. The media has a duty to generate debate on these
issues.
HIV/AIDS is
also a very emotive subject in some countries like South Africa
and even here in Kenya. Whereas some people in the government
might see it as first and foremost a poverty issue others
maintain that it is a health problem that impacts on other
sectors of the economy. The challenge for the media is to
navigate around these conflicting interests which in some cases
may be very political and therefore ‘hot’ news subjects and give
a fair and objective view of the right position. Programme
implementers and government operatives are also under pressure
to show to the public that after sinking so much funds in
HIV/AIDS indeed there is something positive happening. The media
then have a role to go beyond what is given for public
consumption and find the underlying basis and or motive of some
public pronouncements over this or that in the field of
HIV/AIDS.
Some
scholars of African culture and religion like Prof. Mazrui have
argued that an African is a child of triple heritage. That
Christianity, Islam and the traditional African religion have
all impacted on the spiritual psyche of the African personality.
No where has this argument proved true than in the area of
HIV/AIDS interventions.
Churches in
Africa have for long argued that HIV/AIDS is an affliction of
the sinners. While the originators of the church in the Western
world quickly came to terms with the epidemic and recognized
prevention measures like use of condoms, churches in Africa and
in particular Kenya continue to condemn the use of condoms. Some
have in fact burned them in public to make their point. The
trouble with this is that the media so far has been stuck in its
traditional role of reporting as it is not stopping to evaluate
consequences this kind of actions have on the sexual behaviour
of respective faithfuls of the participating denominations.
Some
examples however stand out in contrast to the Kenyan situation.
In Uganda for example, according to the Minister of Finance Mr.
Ssendaula, the church quietly agreed that it would not publicly
discredit the prevention measures advocated by the government
and other stakeholders. This it was argued was aimed at
encouraging a plurality of ideas and multi-interventional
approach to achieve the required synergy to reduce the spread of
HIV/AIDS.
Christianity
and Islam have their own codes of conduct, which invariably lie
at the core of these religions. Some churches for instance have
a firm grip on their folks such that the decrees given from the
church’s hierarchy are followed to the letter. Holy Scriptures
describe afflictions of various kinds that could befall the
faithful were they to deviate from the laid down code of
conduct. It is therefore little wonder that those infected with
HIV are thought to have strayed from the good word of the Lord
or from the teachings of the holy prophet Mohammed-peace be upon
him.
The
traditional African religion has various cultural rites that are
a must for the members of those communities. Those living with
HIV/AIDS are therefore suspected to have failed to adhere to
some of these rites and rituals
Depending on
the religious background of the reporter covering HIV/AIDS
issues, certain parts of his/her analysis are bound to reflect
this background. Where this may not be the case, the background
of the media house owners may impact on the story lines
containing HIV/AIDS issues. For instance, some religious leaning
media may decide to black out any issues on HIV/AIDS or where
they cover them they may be laced with religious overtones. For
instance it is expecting too much to hope that a Christian
newspaper or radio/TV station will air condom use messages to
its audience. In the same vain a reporter whose religious
background is for example Catholic may feel constrained
discussing condom use, abortion of a foetus conceived from rape
etc. for fear of contradicting his/her pastor.
In the
Western societies homosexuals were stigmatized in the early
stages of the epidemic by the mass media, fundamentalists and
politicians to such an extend that provision of health care for
seropostive and AIDS patients was hindered. However they were
not entirely to blame. Early AIDS researchers in the US
described AIDS as a gay related disease!
It is
important to point out however that in Sub-Saharan Africa where
HIV/AIDS is mainly transmitted heterosexually the concept of
stigmatization may go beyond identifiable fringe groups to
encompass whole ethnic entities and cultural practices.
The media
have been viewed as being influential in building awareness
across different sectors of society and the importance of
individuals being careful in sexual behaviour and practices.
While this has had a limited effect in attitude and behaviour
change, there are experiences that have shown that their
contribution can be invaluable and indeed powerful in
determining behaviour change. Although certain cultural and
religious impediments still stand in the way of effective media
reporting on HIV/AIDS there is hope of dismantling these
barriers through joined stakeholder efforts like this UNESCO
workshop.
In this
regard there is need for the media to appreciate the inter
relatedness of culture and religion on one hand and a people’s
behaviour on the other to be able to meaningfully influence
their attitudes. In addition there is need for:
ø
Training
media practitioners in the basic concepts of HIV/AIDS
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Advocacy and
lobbying for regular allocation of space and airtime in the mass
media
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Publication
of reference materials for the media
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Establishing
of a network on media and HIV/AIDS and prevention
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Humanizing
the statistics and demystifying the epidemic and sex
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Getting more
women to report on HIV/AIDS issues
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Advocating
for gender sensitivity in HIV/AIDS intervention programmes
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Giving a
cultural and religious touch to the analyses of HIV/AIDS
articles and advocating for an Afro-centric approach to the
management of the disaster
ø
Presenting
the public opinion on the disease
ø
Presenting a
holistic picture of HIV/AIDS
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Educating
society on the need for community based structures in HIV/AIDS
prevention and management
ø
Advocating
for accountability and responsibility in the HIV/AIDS prevention
and management
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