ABOUT US

The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project investigates the role and the impact of the news media on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa.

Specific objectives of the project are:

• To encourage and enable journalists to play an informed role in combating HIV/AIDS
• To promote discussion and debate among journalists, editors, health professional and other key roleplayers in this area
• To provide high quality academic research, which ensures an informed and useful debate around this issue
• To monitor the role and the impact of the media

We engage in a number of activities to achieve this objective:

• We offer 4-6 month fellowships to working journalists to undertake longer term and in-depth research and writing outside of the newsroom. The writing that results from these fellowships is published in a wide range of media and peer-reviewed journals
• We identify and research gaps in reporting. Previous and current fellowships have focused on media coverage and audience reception of HIV/AIDS news texts, the role of stigma and gender in Prevention of mother-to-child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT), the strengths and vulnerabilities of HIV-positive children and the role of traditional health practitioners in the mainstream treatment of their patients
• We host an online resource for journalists on HIV/AIDS
• We run wider discussion forums on HIV/AIDS and the Media to stimulate debate and discussion amongst journalists, editors, activists, doctors, scientists, academics, government and other stakeholders
• We facilitate training of graduate and working journalists in HIV/AIDS reporting
• Each year we are involved in the training of career-entry Honours students from the Wits Journalism Programme in HIV/AIDS reporting
• We produce ongoing research, resources and publications
• We have partnered with a number of organisations such as the Nelson Mandela Foundation, SA National Editors’ Forum, NSJ, CADRE, the Media Monitoring Project and the Children’s Institute in areas such as discussion forums, research and analysis of media content.

If you would like any more information on the project or would like to make suggestions or comments about the website, please contact the Research Coordinator, Kylie Thomas, at:

HIV/AIDS and the Media Project
Journalism Programme
University of the Witwatersrand
Private Bag 3
WITS 2050
Tel: (011) 717-4086
Cell: (082) 935 6435
Fax: (011) 717-4081
Email: kylie.thomas@wits.ac.za

The project is jointly managed by the Perinatal HIV Research Unit and the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand, and supported by the Health Communication Partnership based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Centre for Communication Programmes and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief through the United States Agency for International Development under terms of Award No. JH/HESA-02-05. The opinions expressed on the website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

This website was developed for and in consultation with the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, Department of Journalism, University of the Witwatersrand, by Flow Communications.

Disclaimer

Whilst reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the information appearing on Journ-AIDS is accurate, Journ-AIDS assumes no responsibility and gives no guarantees to the accuracy of the information provided on this website and does not accept any liability whatsoever arising from any errors or omissions.