Television, AIDS and Risk : A Cultural Studies Approach to Health Communication

How does television construct AIDS? How can health communicators use television effectively?

How can qualitative and quantitative methods be used to research television?

How do professionals make AIDS television and how do audiences respond?

Since the mid-1980s, television has been an important medium for constructing meanings around HIV/AIDS.

It has nominated certain groups as "at risk", presented the risk factors and portrayed the bodily effects of the disease.

This book addresses the three major areas of meaning in television portrayals of AIDS and HIV risk - contents, production and audience response.

John Tulloch and Deborah Lupton bring the concerns of health communication and health promotion together with theoretical perspectives offered by cultural studies.This study should be useful reading for academics and students in both cultural studies and public health.

For readers in cultural studies, the book offers a study of media production and audience response to AIDS television, and a reassessment of the value of quantitative and qualitative research methods in television research.

For health professionals it offers a better understanding of the relationship between media cultures and public health cultures.