Since the first reported case of HIV and AIDS infection in Kenya in 1984, there have been concerted efforts aimed at combating the disease and managing its impact on the public. Such efforts include clinical interventions and development of Information, Education and Communication materials targeted at the general public. Between the years 2004 and 2005, the Kenya government developed media campaign materials that appeared as advertisements in newspapers. Most advertisements presented the sanitized version of HIV and AIDS. This paper argues that the sanitization of HIV and AIDS is an “identity project” negotiated among the players involved: the media, the government, medical practitioners, religious groups and the public. The effect of culture on the way HIV and AIDS discourses are constructed has implications on the way the public views the issue of HIV and AIDS and treats those who have it. It also reveals possible sites of difficulty when government and religious organizations communicate about the issue.
Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic Color Terms. Berkeley: California University Press.
Crystal, D. (1997). An Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Basil: Blackwell Ltd.
Dearing, J. W. (1992). Foreign Blood and Domestic Politics: Issues of AIDS in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
De Saussure, F. (1922). Cours d Linguistique Générale (Translated 1960). Hague: Mouton.
Eco, U. (1990). Semiotic Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hermèren, L. (1999). English for Sale: A Study of the Language of Advertising. Lund: Lund University Press.
Hornby, A. S. (2000). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jones, R. H. (1997). Marketing the Damaged Self: The Construction of Identity in Advertisements Directed Towards People with HI V/AIDS. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 1(3), 393-418.
Jones, R. H. (1998). Two faces of AIDS in Hong Kong: Culture and the Construction of the “AIDS Celebrity”. Discourse and Society, 9(3), 309-338.
Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996).Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London:Routledge.
Marsland, A. S. (2006). Color Therapy. Available from http://www.biopulse.org (accessed on 30.4.2006).
McGeary J. (2001). Death Stalks a Continent. Colorado: Westview Press.
Myers, G. (1994). Words in Ads. London: GreenGate Publishing House.
Osho Times. (2001). Available from http://www.oshotimes.de (accessed 2.5.2011).
Payne, J. G., & Mercuri, K. A. (1993). Crisis in Communication: Coverage of Magic Johnson’s AIDS Disclosure. Washington: Taylor and Francis.
Sontag, S. (1989). Aids and its Metaphors. New York: Farrar, Strauss Giroux.
Willis, R. (2002). The Aids Pandemic. Lincolnshire: Stanborough Press Ltd.
In-Text Citation: (Benard & Felicia, 2015)
To Cite this Article: Benard, K., & Felicia, Y. (2015). The Role of Visual Semiotics in Shaping HIV and Aids Discourses in Kenyan Print Media: A Case Study of a Newspaper Advertisement. Multilingual Academic Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 3(1), 1–14.
Copyright: © 2015 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
