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AIDS Risk and Heterosexuality in the Australian Press

The popular press is an important forum for communicating messages and meanings about health risks. This paper examines new reports of AIDS published in the Australian metropolitan press in late 1986 and early 1987. This period was chosen because it marked a change in news representations of AIDS from a disease of the deviant and (primarily) homosexual Other to a disease of the heterosexual Self. The discussion examines some of the discursive devices used in headlines, editorials and the main body of news texts to represent AIDS as a threat to heterosexuals. The dominant ideologies, narratives and discourses contributing to press accounts of AIDS risk and heterosexuality are identified, including victim blaming, public health paternalism, risk discourse, Judeo-Christian religion and sexuality, the moral meanings of disease and fin de millénium discourse.