The condom has been the subject of much publicity over the past five years because of its role in preventing the spread of HIV: However, despite the attempts of health promoters and condom manufacturers to make condoms respectable, they still seem to suffer from stigmatization. This article discusses the representation of condoms in the Australian press. A discourse analysis approach is used to identify the prominent topics, the manifest and latent themes, and the rhetorical devices used in press accounts to portray condoms in the age of AIDS. The results provide some explanation for the continued lack of popularity of condoms by demonstrating the deep cultural anxieties and negative meanings that still surround them. Until these are challenged, it is unlikely that the general population will adopt the use of condoms to protect against the spread of AIDS.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Altman, D. (1986). AIDS and the new puritanism. London: Pluto.
2.
Andren, G. , Ericsson, L. O., Ohlsson, R., & Tannsjo, T. (1978). Rhetoric and ideology in advertising. Sweden: Liberforlag.
3.
Ballard, J. (1989). The politics of AIDS. In H. Gardner (Ed.), The politics of health: The Australian experience (pp. 349-375). Melbourne: Churchill Livingstone.
4.
Brandt, A. (1985). No magic bullet: A social history of venereal disease in the United States since 1880. New York: Oxford University Press.
5.
Bruce, K.E.M. , Shrum J. C., Trefethen, C., & Slovik, L. F. (1990). Students' attitudes about AIDS, homosexuality, and condoms. AIDS Education and Prevention, 2(3), 220-234.
6.
Catania, J. , Dolcini, M., Coates, T., Kegeles, S., Greenblatt, R., Puckett, S., Corman, M., & Miller, J. (1989). Predictors of condom use and multiple partnered sex among highly sexually active adolescent women: Implications for AIDS related health interventions. Journal of Sex Research, 26, 514-524.
7.
Chapman, S. , & Hodgson, J. (1988). Showers in raincoats: Attitudinal barriers to condom use in high-risk heterosexuals. Community Health Studies, 12, 97-105.
8.
Clarke, J. N. (1991). Media portrayal of disease from the medical, political economy, and life-style perspectives. Qualitative Health Research, 1(3), 287-308.
9.
Clarke, J. N. (1992). Cancer, heart disease, and AIDS: What do the media tell us about these diseases?Health Communication, 4(2), 105-120.
10.
Clatts, M. C. , & Mutchler, K. M. (1989). AIDS and the dangerous other: Metaphors of sex and deviance in the representation of disease. Medical Anthropology, 10, 105-114.
11.
Connell, I. , & Mills, A. (1985). Text, discourse and mass communication. In T. A. van Dik (Ed.), Discourse and communication (pp. 26-43). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
12.
Cunningham, I. (1989). The public controversies of AIDS in Puerto Rico. Social Science & Medicine, 29, 545-553.
13.
Davenport-Hines, R. (1990). Sex, death and punishment: Attitudes to sex and sexuality in Britain since the Renaissance. London: Collins.
14.
Downing, J.D.H. (1990). US media discourse on South Africa: The development of a situation model. Discourse & Society, 1(1), 39-60.
15.
Douglas, M. (1979). Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
16.
Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to communication studies (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
17.
Gamson, J. (1990). Rubber wars: Struggles over the condom in the United States. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 1(2), 262-282.
18.
Hall, C. (1992). Missionary stories: Gender and ethnicity in England in the 1830s and 1840s. In L. GrossbergC. Nelson, & P. Treichler (Eds.), Cultural studies (pp. 240-276). New YorkRoutledge.
19.
Hatcher, R. A. , & Hughes, M. S. (1988). The truth about condoms. SEICUS Report, 17, 1-9.
20.
Herzlich, C. , & Pierret, J. (1989). The construction of a social phenomenon: AIDS in the French Press. Social Science & Medicine, 29, 1235-1242.
21.
Holland, J. , Ramazanoglu, C., Scott, S., Sharpe, S., & Thomson, R. (1991). Between embarrassment and trust Young women and the diversity of condom use. In P. Aggleton, G. Hart, & P. Davies (Eds.), AIDS: Responses interventions and care (pp. 127-148). London: Falmer.
22.
Kegeles, S. M. , Adler, N. E., & Irwin, C. E. (1988). Sexually active adolescents and condoms: Changes over one year in knowledge, attitudes and use. American Journal of Public Health, 78, 460-461.
23.
King, D. (1990). 'Prostitutes as pariah in the age of AIDS': A content analysis of coverage of women prostitutes in The New York Times and the Washington Post, September 1985-April 1988. Women & Health, 16(3/4), 155-176.
24.
Leiss, W. , Kline, S., & Jhally, S. (1986). Social communication in advertising. Toronto: Methuen.
25.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1977). Structural anthropology. Harmondsworth: Peregrine.
26.
Lupton, D. (1991). Apocalypse to banality: Changes in metaphors about AIDS in the Australian Press. Australian Journal of Communication, 18(2), 66-74.
27.
Lupton, D. (1992a). From complacency to panic: AIDS and heterosexuals in the Australian press, July 1986 to June 1988. Health Education Research: Theory & Practice, 7(1), 9-20.
28.
Lupton, D. (1992b). Discourse analysis: A new methodology for understanding the ideologies of health and illness. Australian Journal of Public Health, 16(2), 145-150.
29.
Lupton, D. (1992c). Moral threats and sexual punishment: Discourses on AIDS in the Australian press. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Sydney.
30.
Lupton, D. (in press). AIDS risk and heterosexuality in the Australian press. Discourse & Society.
31.
Lupton, D. , Chapman, S., Donovan, B., & Mulhall B. (1992). Attitudes to and use of condoms amongst multipartnered heterosexuals in Sydney, Australia. Venereology, 5(2), 41-45.
32.
Martin, E. (1992). Body narratives, body boundaries. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P. A. Treichler (Eds.), Cultural studies (pp. 409-423). New YorkRoutledge.
33.
Maticka-Tyndale, E. (1992). Social construction of HIV transmission and prevention among heterosexual young adults. Social Problems, 39(3), 238-252.
34.
Mercer, K. (1992). '1968': Periodising post-modern politics and identity. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P. Treichler (Eds.), Cultural studies (pp. 424-429). New York: Routledge.
35.
Memon, A. (1990). Young people's knowledge, beliefs and attitudes about HIV/AIDS: A review of research. Health Education Research, 5(3), 327-335.
36.
Norton, R. (1990). The communication scholar in the AIDS crisis. Communication Research, 11(6), 733-742.
37.
Parker, L. (1992). Discourse dynamics: Critical analysis for social and individual psychology. London: Routledge.
38.
Sonnex, C. , Hart, G. J., Williams, P., & Adler, M. (1989). Condom use by heterosexuals attending a department of GUM: Attitudes and behavior in the light of HIV infection. Genitourinary Medicine, 65, 248-251.
39.
Sontag, S. (1989). Illness as metaphor and AIDS as metaphor. London: Allen Lane.
40.
Treichler, P. (1989). AIDS, homophobia, and biomedical discourse: An epidemic of signification. In D. Crimp (Ed.), AIDS: Cultural analysis, cultural activism (pp. 31-70). Cambridge, MA: MIT.
41.
Valdiserri, R. O. (1988). Cum hastis sic clypeatis: The turbulent history of the condom. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 64, 237-245.
42.
van Dik, T. A. (1985). Introduction: Discourse analysis in (mass) communication research. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse and communication: New approaches to the analysis of mass media discourse and communication (pp. 1-9). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
43.
van Dik, T. A. (1990). Discourse analysis in the 1990s. Text, 10(1/2), 133-156.
44.
van Dijk, T. A. (1991). Racism and the press. London: Routledge.
45.
Watney, S. (1987). Policing desire: Pornography, AIDS and the media. London: Comedia.
46.
Watney, S. (1989a). The spectacle of AIDS. In D. Crimp (Ed.), AIDS: Cultural analysis, cultural activism (pp. 71-86). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
47.
Watney, S. (1989b). Taking liberties: An introduction. In E. Carter & S. Watney (Eds.), Taking liberties, (pp. 11-57). London: Serpent's Tail.
48.
Wellings, K. (1988). Perceptions of risk—Media treatment of AIDS. In P. Aggleton & H. Homans (Eds.), Social aspects of AIDS (pp. 83-105). London: Falmer.
