The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project forms part of the Media Observatory — the research arm of the Wits Journalism Programme.
| Fellowship research summary | |
| 2003/2004 | |
Ida Jooste |
The missing pages of the history book: The reception and recall of HIV/AIDS-related news texts in Cato Manor, Durban |
The President from Mars: Reception of HIV news media in Durban's Cato Manor: an active audience expression of news needs and political dissatisfaction |
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Alan Finlay |
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Conflict and HIV/AIDS in the South African press (a comparative study March-May 2002 and March-May 2003) |
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| 2004/2005 | |
Philippa Garson |
"Men Think We Bring the Disease": Challenges facing HIV-positive mothers in Soweto ( |
Nicola Spurr |
Who is setting the PMTCT agenda? A quantitative content analysis of media coverage of PMTCT in South Africa ( |
Franz Kruger |
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Fellowships are granted to journalists to conduct in-depth research and writing on HIV/AIDS and the Media.
In 2006/7 the research fellows are Zackie Achmat, Suzanne Leclerc Madlala, Mike Saneka and Sabelo Zondo.
Zackie Achmat is a fellow of the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, currently in the first term of his three year fellowship. Achmat is the chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an organisation founded in December 1998, which is dedicated to treating HIV and reducing new HIV infections. Because of TAC's pressure on government, antiretroviral treatment has become equally available to all sufferers of HIV and Aids.
Zackie Achmat
This was not always the case. Prior to August 2003, ARVs were very expensive, and could only be afforded by an elite niche of sufferers. In what started as a campaign against patent drug companies, Achmat, who is open about his HIV positive status, refused ARV treatment until it was readily available to the general population of people infected with the virus. Achmat and TAC have done a great deal in discrediting AIDS denialism, as well as in ensuring that ARV's are more available to those in need.
Mike Saneka, Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala and Sabelo Zondo
Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala is Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Anthropology Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal .
Originally from Rhode Island in the United States , she has been working as a lecturer in South Africa since 1986. She has done extensive research in the area of HIV/AIDS over the past decade, and she has been actively involved in training and in evaluating HIV/AIDS interventions in KwaZulu-Natal . She has given numerous public addresses, as well as contributed to various out-reach programmes such as UKZN International and KZNUDF. Her publications include numerous academic articles, as well as many articles written for print media. She has also appeared on radio and television in South Africa . Her book, entitled, The Gendering of HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal , was recently accepted for publication.
Mike Saneka is a practised HIV/AIDS researcher, who also has experience writing for the NGO sector in KwaZulu-Natal . He has worked extensively with traditional healers in an attempt to bridge the gap between the traditional and western approaches to HIV/AIDS. Sabelo Zondo is an MA student doing research in socio-cultural constructions and meanings of male circumcision in KwaZulu-Natal . She has contributed pieces to Isolezwe, and wants to see the media adopting a less
complicated take on HIV/AIDS so that less-sophisticated people will better understand the issues that are facing us in South Africa.
During their fellowship, the research team aims to investigate the theme of “Abstinence and Faithfulness” through a five-part series of articles. They will focus on whether abstinence is a viable strategy in the face of dire social issues, such as poverty, sexual violence and inequality. They intend to pose questions ranging from whether the increase in the sales of fidelity-protection medicines is connected to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to whether or not churches are doing all they can to communicate the HIV/AIDS messages that they are best placed socially to communicate. Suzanne, Mike and Sabelo are fellows of the HIV/AIDS and the Media project from May to September 2007. Watch this site for details about their research as it unfolds.
In 2005/6 the research fellows are Christina Stucky and Glynis Clacherty.
Christina Stucky (left) and Glynis Clacherty. Photo: Cobus Coetzee
Christina Stucky (email) is a freelance journalist, consultant and media trainer. She has worked in Switzerland, the United States, the Czech Republic and, since January 1994, in South Africa. Based in Johannesburg, she worked for The Star newspaper during the country's first democratic elections in 1994 and was the sub-Saharan Africa stringer for the Swiss weekly newspaper, Die Weltwoche, for which she travelled to Rwanda in 1994. In June 1995 she joined The Sunday Independent a week before the paper‘s launch. During this time she was the winner of and runner-up for a number of awards, including the Courageous Journalism Award of the Ruth First Memorial Trust. In 1998 she was the launch editor of Reconstruct, an award-winning weekly supplement on development issues which appeared in The Sunday Independent until the end of 2000. From December 2000 until March 2003 she was the southern Africa correspondent for Switzerland‘s leading daily newspaper, Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ) and its Sunday edition, NZZ am Sonntag. In 2002 and 2003, she was the chairperson of the Foreign Correspondents Association of Southern Africa.
Glynis Clacherty (email) is the Director of Clacherty & Associates. She has worked as a teacher at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels. After teaching she worked as a freelance writer for 4 years until the establishment of Clacherty and Associates. She is a recognised expert in child health issues and participatory research with children and women. She has published many educational books and is the author of a number of academic articles.
Christina and Glynis have formed a unique partnership of a journalist and a researcher and have worked as a team to produce journalistic and research work on HIV-positive children.
In a stakeholder's workshop hosted in July 2005 by the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, with a range of representatives from organisations working with children affected by AIDS, it emerged that there is a gap on research and journalism on HIV-positive children. The fellows aim to research and address this gap.
Glynis and Christina collaborated on an ethnographic study of 15 HIV-positive children aged 6 to 11 who live in an informal settlement outside Johannesburg. They used a highly successful and innovative qualitative methodology, using life-sized dolls to facilitate discussion with the children. A detailed picture of the children's lives as well as their perspectives on issues such as disclosure, secrecy, stigma, hospitalisation, treatment, school and coping strategies have emerged form the study.
This information is being used by Christina to produce a series of newspaper articles raising awareness of many of the issues relating to HIV-positive children and by Glynis to produce a research article on the same subject. They are also producing a methodology paper about their experiences of working together. Christina published an article in December 2005 entitled "Mass denial virus infects newspapers" about media coverage of children and HIV/AIDS. Christina and Glynis's fellowship output will be available near the end of March 2006.
In 2004/5, the research fellows were Philippa Garson and Nicola Spurr.
Philipa Garson
Philippa Garson (email) has been a journalist for the past 15 years. She has published on a wide range of issues, including news, politics, health and education. In the 1990s she specialised in education reporting, editing the Mail and Guardian 's The Teacher newspaper and the Sunday Times Top Schools Survey. In 1996 she won the British Council/Sanlam Education Journalist of the Year Award. She was short-listed for a Nieman Fellowship in 1999. Over the past few years, Philippa has worked for Big Media's various on-line sites. She is currently working as a freelance journalist and is also editing and writing books for teenagers. Philippa continues to write on HIV/AIDS and has written a Journ-AIDS blog on her experiences during her fellowship.
During her fellowship Philippa's research focused on the 
challenges facing HIV-positive women in Soweto. Garson is currently working on the final draft of this paper and will also publish a long media article based on her research. Her academic article based on this research is currently under review.
In December 2004 she published an article entitled "A new shield for women" in the December 3-9 2004 edition of the Mail and Guardian on recent research into microbicides. She has also published a number of articles in the AIDS Research Institute's HIV/AIDS Indaba . In the World AIDS Day edition in December 2004 she wrote an article entitled "
Gender, sex and HIV/AIDS" and in the April 2005 edition she published an article entitled "The Nevirapine controversy and the media".
Articles
Nicola Spurr
Nicola Spurr (email) is a freelance researcher and writer based in Johannesburg. Since 1994, Nicola has worked for, and consulted to, a range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and public sector departments within South Africa. She has worked in diverse fields, including HIV/AIDS, local government, low-cost housing, energy efficiency, media monitoring, youth and civil society.
Spurr researched coverage of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) in the news media. Nicola has released the preliminary findings of her research, entitled "Who is setting the PMTCT agenda? A quantitative content analysis of media coverage of PMTCT in South Africa". The Media Monitoring Project is working on the final draft of this paper and freelance researcher Ann Eveleth is writing a qualitative research piece to accompany the quantitative research. Along with Natalie Ridgard, Nicola published a journalistic article based on her research in the 25 November 2005 edition of Rhodes Journalism Review.
She wrote an article for the Mail&Guardian entitled "Is childbirth an absolute right?" Her article inspired an "After Eight Debate" edition, hosted by John Perlman on AM Live on SAFM. She too has published an article for the 2004 World AIDS Day edition of HIV/AIDS Indaba, entitled "Gauteng ARV roll-out gains momentum".
Franz Krüger (email) completed a paper — entitled "Ethics in a time of AIDS" — for the discussion forum Secrets and Lies: The ethics of HIV/AIDS reporting in South Africa on February 1 at the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
An expanded and updated version of this paper entitled "Ethical Journalism in a time of AIDS" appeared in African Journal of AIDS Research 4.2 (2005). Franz was also involved in the drafting of the 2005 SAEF Guiding Principles for ethical reporting of HIV and AIDS & Gender.
Franz is a journalist with over 20 years of experience. He has worked in print and broadcasting in South Africa, Namibia and the UK, at media groups ranging from the BBC and the London Guardian to East London's Daily Dispatch and the Windhoek Advertiser. He was founding group editor of East Cape News Agencies, a network of independent news agencies during the eighties which was subjected to considerable repression at the hands of the apartheid government. As national editor of radio news and current affairs at the SABC from 1994 to 1999, Krüger formed part of the first post-apartheid management team at the corporation and helped achieve a significant turnaround in the credibility and quality of radio journalism at the corporation.
2003/2004
In 2003/4, the research fellows were Ida Jooste and Alan Finlay.
Ida Jooste
Ida Jooste is a specialist TV producer for the SABC current affairs programme, Fokus. Her journalistic career spans TV news journalism, in-depth reportage, editorial and project management and the establishment of regional TV with SABC colleagues in KwaZulu-Natal. Increasingly her broadcast work has focused on the multi-dimensions of HIV/AIDS.
During her fellowship Ida conducted an audience reception study of HIV/AIDS news coverage in Cato Manor in Durban. She completed two research articles, entitled "The missing pages of the history book: The reception and recall of HIV/AIDS-related news texts in Cato Manor, Durban" and "The President from Mars: Reception of HIV news media in Durban's Cato Manor: an active audience expression of news needs and political dissatisfaction".
Jooste wrote a newspaper article from research that emerged from her fellowship entitled "Desperate people rely on HIV to get money" and another piece which appeared in Business Day: "Research dispels notion of AIDS fatigue".
Alan Finlay
Alan Finlay has worked as a broadcast and online journalist and freelanced for the print media. Most recently he worked in the field of ICTs (Information Communication Technologies) in the civil society sector, with a focus on regional ICT research and developing online information projects. He is currently a partner in Open Research, a research organisation specializing in regional ICT research.
During his fellowship Alan conducted a comparative analysis of the print media's coverage of HIV/AIDS during three months of 2002/3. He completed two research papers. The first is "Shaping the conflict: factors influencing the representation of conflict around HIV/AIDS policy in the South African press" which was published in Comminicare 23.2 (December 2004). The second is entitled "Conflict and HIV/AIDS in the South African press (a comparative study March-May 2002 and March-May 2003)".
Finlay wrote an article about his research that was published in the Star under the headline "Media helped win the drugs fight".
Carole Muchendu (email) completed her MA in Journalism and Media Studies in 2005. The title of her dissertation is "Sourcing of HIV/AIDS treatment news: a case study of selected South African print media" (read summary).
Fredrick Ogenga (email) is in the second year of his MA by research in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies. The title of his thesis is "PMTCT messages on the entertainment-education television programme Tsha Tsha and the reception of these messages by men in Soweto, Johannesburg". Click here for a summary of his research.
Rochelle Davidson (email)
has recently completed her MA in Development Studies. The title of her research report is "Media for development: news media coverage of women's health in the realm of Prevention of mother-to-child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT)" (read summary).
Michael Prytz (email) is registered for a MA in Journalism and Media Studies. His research is focused on an evaluation of the Treatment Action Campaign's media strategy.
Career entry honours research 2004
The HIV/AIDS and the Media career-entry honours group in the Wits Journalism Programme completed research reports on the representation of HIV/AIDS in the South African media 1994-2004. Their work was collated and presented at the Conceptualising the AIDS Museum Conference, University of the Witwatersrand, 2-3 November in a presentation entitled "Ten Years of Democracy: the representation of HIV/AIDS in the South African media 1994-2004" (Powerpoint Presentation; 6.8MB).
Limpopo research trip January 2005
In January, five career-entry honours students from the Wits Journalism Programme embarked on a week-long research trip to Limpopo Province. We wanted to gather personal stories about HIV/AIDS in order to create an archive of articles and research that focus on people's experiences with the Prevention of Mother-to-Child-Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programme in a rural area. We used the Tintswalo catchment area in Bohlabela District, Limpopo as a case study. We interviewed twenty nine women, that is, patients from the antenatal clinic at Tintswalo Hospital, the second biggest hospital in the district, and surrounding clinics. We also interviewed twenty five staff members, ranging from lay counsellors to hospital management. We asked them questions about the successes and challenges of the PMTCT programme in the area, access to resources, attitudes towards and knowledge of Nevirapine, feeding choices and difficulties, Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT), disclosure, stigma, discrimination and the impact the programme has on their relationships with loved ones, the community and, importantly, with HIV itself. Philile Masango, one of the students, also published a feature article in the HIV/AIDS Indaba entitled "Ntombenhle's Story".
Natalie Ridgard (email) has written up the preliminary findings from the interviews with health care workers which emerged from this research trip. (Read the preliminary findings: If you want to see me bright, touch on the question: attitudes of health care workers to the PMTCT programme in a rural area.)
Career entry honours research 2005
In 2005 five students in the HIV/AIDS and the Media research group analysed the production, content and reception of a three-part series called "A Fall of Sparrows", which appeared in the Star, 8-10 October 2003 (see HIV/AIDS journalism). Abstracts of their research are available from Natalie Ridgard and will be made available here shortly. A research article for publication, based on this research, is currently being completed by Natalie Ridgard.
There is a good deal of criticism of HIV/AIDS coverage in South African newspapers. At the same time, journalists trying to provide better coverage are grappling with complex issues of how best to treat the issue.
A discussion forum entitled "Secrets and lies? The ethics of HIV/AIDS reporting in South Africa", on the 1 February 2005, hosted at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in partnership with the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, brought together these journalists with activists, scientists, doctors and others to debate how HIV/AIDS should be reported, and how the news media can best contribute to the battle against the pandemic.
The forum was chaired by John Perlman, journalist and host of AM Live on SAFM.
Resources: Secrets and Lies Discussion Forum |
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PUBLICATIONS |
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 PDF; 393 KB
Secrets and Lies? The ethics of HIV/AIDS reporting in South Africa. Discussion forum publication. |
 Word Document; 58 KBTranscript of the Discussion Forum |
 Word Document; 95 KBEthics in a time of AIDS, by Franz Krüger |
PRESENTATIONS |
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The Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) is of critical strategic importance in combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa. By its nature, however, the implementation of a PMTCT programme in South Africa faces myriad political, cultural, social-economic, psychological and other challenges.
A discussion forum entitled "Baby Steps: Reporting on Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT)", on 8 April 2005, hosted at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in partnership with the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, brought together these journalists with activists, scientists, doctors and others to discuss the successes and difficulties encountered by people who are implementing and participating in the PMTCT programme, and the extent to which the media is reflecting and addressing their experiences.
The forum was chaired by Joe Thloloe, chairperson of the South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef).
| Resources: Baby Steps Discussion Forum |
PUBLICATION |
   ( PDF; 519KB)
Baby Steps: Reporting on the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV. Discussion forum publication. |
PRESENTATIONS |
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PowerPoint Presentation; 3.4MBWho is setting the PMTCT agenda? A quantitative content analysis of media coverage of PMTCT in South Africa. By Nicola Spurr ( see research text). |
 PowerPoint Presentation; 3.8MBChallenges facing HIV-positive mothers in Soweto. By Philippa Garson ( see research text). |
 PowerPoint Presentation; 4.5MBAttitudes of health care workers to the PMTCT programme in a rural area. By Natalie Ridgard ( see research text). |
A comparative look at HIV/AIDS reportage in the U.S. and South Africa
Professor Doug Foster, associate professor at Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, looked at the history of the gaps in the first few waves of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and ways in which this history resonates in a South African setting. The presentation was followed by a lively and interesting "conversation" based on these remarks, between John Perlman, journalist and presenter of SAFM 's "AM Live", the audience and a panel of three health journalists namely: Kerry Cullinan (manager, Health-e news service), Jillian Green (health and science journalist, the Star) and Tamar Kahn (science and health editor, Business Day). Seventy people attended the forum, again forming an audience of journalists, activists, doctors, scientists and others. A retrospective booklet will be produced by the end of March and will be available in hard copy and online. The suggestions made during the discussion, such as a specialist forum for health journalists and then editors, will be carried forward into planning for future forums.
RESOURCES |
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 ( PDF; 1,400KB) Baby Steps: Reporting on the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV. Discussion forum publication.
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In this roundtable discussion we took an in-depth look at reporting on children affected by AIDS. We took the opportunity of this gathering to discuss the challenges faced by health journalists and journalists interested in HIV/AIDS, as well as tabled a list of concerns that can be taken forward to editors-in-chief, who will be meeting at a round table discussion on reporting HIV/AIDS later on in the year. The programme included three presentations:
Helen Meintjes (Children's Institute): what are the key socio-economic challenges facing children affected by AIDS and in what way do the media cover them?
Glynis Clacherty (researcher) & Christina Stucky (journalist), HIV/AIDS & the Media Project fellows: working with children: experiences & some ethical considerations
Dr. Hasina Cassim (Medical Officer in the Paediatric Wellness Programme at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit): what are the key clinical challenges facing children affected by AIDS?
The transcripts of this discussion will be available soon and a retrospective booklet will be produced by the end of March 2006 and will be available online and in hard copy.
The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project hosted its sixth HIV/AIDS and the Media discussion forum, for the first time in partnership with Constitution Hill, on May 11, 2006. At the forum, HIV/AIDS and the Media Fellows for 2005/6, Glynis Clacherty and Christina Stucky, presented research and journalistic work on HIV-positive children.
After identifying a gap in research and media coverage of children affected by HIV/AIDS, the fellows ran a series of workshops with a group of 17 HIV-positive children to investigate the specific challenges they face. The result is groundbreaking research and writing on children living with HIV in South Africa.
Human and children’s rights expert Shirley Mabusela kicked off the forum by giving her impressions, from a child rights perspective, of some of the challenges of doing this kind of work with children affected by HIV/AIDS. The presentations were followed by a panel discussion where the speakers were joined by Claire Egbers, clinician manager at Harriet Shezi Children’s Clinic at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, and the audience of journalists, doctors, scientists, representatives from children’s organisations, academics and activists. The panel discussion was chaired by journalist and media trainer, Paula Fray.
RESOURCES |
Discussion forum publication.
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The preliminary findings of the 1st South African National HIV/AIDS Communication Survey 2006 are being presented this week in a national roadshow at the following venues:
Click on the following links to download the Powerpoint presentations from the roadshow.
Dr. Warren Parker, CADRE, presents preliminary findings on communication campaigns in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa.
Dr. Larry Kincaid, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, looks at the overall impact of 14 AIDS communication programmes in South Africa.
He also presents on the impact of the television drama, Tsha Tsha.
Saul Johnson, Gill Schierhout and Zethu Matabeni, Khomanani, look at the impact of the South African government prevention campaign, Khomanani.
Mzamani Benjamin Makhubole and Pumla Ntlabati, CADRE, present their findings from a small-scale qualitative analysis of sexual relationships and their implications for perception of HIV risk.
Dr. Sue Goldstein, Soul City, presents the impact findings of the Soul City 7 and Soul Buddyz 3 series.
"Zama needs to take out the burden and tell": Documenting the voices of children living with HIV
