Abstract
HIV and hepatitis C are blood-borne viruses that cause chronic diseases and affect (in parts of the developed world) predominantly groups that are marginalized and discriminated against: gay men and injecting drug users, respectively. This paper compares the representation of people with HIV and hepatitis C in editorials of medical journals between 1989 and 2001. Analysis is informed by critical discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics. Hepatitis C editorials draw almost exclusively on the discourse of biomedicine, and patients are either absent or objects in medical procedures. In HIV editorials, a variety of other discourses are integrated into the discourse of biomedicine, thereby creating multidimensional representations of people with HIV as patients and agents in medical procedures, involved in decision making, affected by economic factors, social and cultural issues. The paper discusses the role of the gay community in discursive change and argues that discursive diversity in the representation of people infected with HIV and hepatitis C in medical journals is necessary for health policy, the professional development of healthcare providers, and media reporting to the general public.
About the authors
Henrike Körner is a Research Fellow at the National Centre in HIV Social Research in Sydney, with a background in linguistics and language education. Her doctoral thesis investigated the negotiation of authority in common law judgments. Her current work is concerned with representations of people with HIV and hepatitis C in the print media, issues relating to HIV and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and interactions between healthcare professionals and people with hepatitis C.
Carla Treloar is a Research Fellow at the National Centre in HIV Social Research. Her interests are from disciplinary backgrounds of health psychology and public health. Carla's research work has focused on many aspects of public health importance: HIV/AIDS, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and medical technologies. Her main interests currently are in the social issues around prevention of and living with hepatitis C.
© Walter de Gruyter