CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  Background of the Study

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is one of the most serious, deadly diseases in human history. HIV causes a condition called acquired immunodeficiency syndrome — better known as AIDS.

HIV destroys a type of defence cell in the body called a CD4 helper lymphocyt. These lymphocytes are part of the body’s immune system, the defence system that fights infections. When HIV destroys these lymphocytes, the immune system becomes weak and people can get serious infections that they normally wouldn’t.

A healthy body has CD4 helper lymphocyte cells (CD4 cells). These cells help the immune system function normally and help fight off certain kind of infection. They do this by acting as messenger to other types of immune system cells, telling them to become active and fight against an invading germ.

HIV is attach to this CD4 cells. The virus then infect the cells and use them as a place to multiply. In doing so, the virus destroys the ability of the immune system, the body loses the ability to fight many infections.

Because their immune system are weakened, people who have AIDS are unable to fight off many infections particularly tuberculosis and other kind of otherwise rare infections of the lungs (such as pneumocysts) (carini pneumonia), the surface covering of the brain (meanitis), or the brain itself (cocephalitis). People who have AIDS tend to keep getting sicker, especially if they are not taking antiviral medication properly.  

As the medical community learns more about how HIV works, they’ve beean able to develop medications to inhibit it (meaning they interfere with its growth). These medicines have been successful in slowing the progress of the disease, and allow many people with HIV to resist infections, stay healthy and prolong their lives, but the medications are not a cure. Right now there is no vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS, although researchers are working on developing one.

According Nadia (2012), Thousands of U.S. teens and young adults get infected with HIV each year. HIV can be transmitted from an infected person to another person through blood, semen (also known as “cum,” the fluid released from the penis when a male ejaculates), vaginal fluids, and breast milk.

The virus is also spread through what doctors call “high-risk behaviours,” which include things like: having unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sexual intercourse (“unprotected” means not using a condom), sharing needles, such as needles used to inject drugs, steroids, and other substances, or sharing needles used for tattooing. People who have another sexually transmitted disease (STD) (such as syphilis, genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea, or bacterial vaginosis) are at greater risk for getting HIV during sex with infected partners.

In most cases, if a woman with HIV is pregnant; her newborn baby can catch the virus from her before birth, during the birthing process or from breastfeeding. Severe symptoms of HIV infection and AIDS may not appear for as long as 10 years (or more for some people) for years leading up to that, people with HIV may not notice any signs that they have the virus.

How long it takes for symptoms of HIV/AIDS to appear varies from person to person. Some people may feel and look healthy for years while they are infected with HIV. It is still possible to infect others with HIV, even if the person with the virus has absolutely no symptoms. You cannot tell simply by looking at someone whether he or she is infected.

Doctors diagnose someone with AIDS when that person’s blood lacks the number of CD4 cells required to fight infections. Doctors also diagnose AIDS if the person has signs of specific illnesses or diseases that occur in people with HIV infection.

When a person’s immune system is overwhelmed by AIDS, he or she might notice:

ü     extreme weakness or fatigue

ü     rapid weight loss

ü     frequent fevers that last for several weeks with no explanation

ü     heavy sweating at night

ü     swollen lymph glands

ü     minor infections that cause skin rashes and mouth, genital, and anal sores

ü     white spots in the mouth or throat

ü     chronic diarrheal

ü     a cough that won’t go away

ü     trouble remembering things

ü     in girls, severe vaginal yeast infections that don’t respond to usual treatment

There is no cure for HIV. That’s why prevention is so important. Combinations of antiviral drugs and drugs that boost the immune system have allowed many people with HIV to resist infections.

Since the discovery of HIV/AIDS in 1981, millions of people around the world have contacted it and millions have also died as a result of the disease. For the reason that there has not been a reliable and conventionally accepted cure of the disease, victims are always at the mercy and at the verge of death.

Ekpu (1995) reported that the disease has claimed over 6.4 million people. Efokodha (2004) reveals that of the 20, 34 cases in Nigeria 60% were between the ages of 15-24.

Levels of awareness of, and knowledge about, HIV/AIDS vary widely around the world. According to recent surveys from over 40 countries, more than half of young people most at risk—those aged 15–24—have serious misconceptions about how the virus is transmitted.

According to Osakue et al (2010), Statistics reveal that out of the estimated 40 million people infected with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2005 (UNAIDS reports, 2006); at least 70% were residing in Sub Sahara Africa (Development Management Associates, 2005). They also emphasized that the pandemic had left 1.7 million children as orphans. Already 18.8 million people around the world have died of HIV/AIDS and 3.8 million of them are children while 4.1 million of these cases were reported in 2005 alone (UNAIDS reports, 2006).

Countries of the world have been responding to the challenges of HIV/AIDS through various awareness campaigns to sensitize their nationals on meaning, mode of spread as well as prevention of the infection.

In reacting to how HIV/AIDS can be combated Kofi Annan, the then United Nations Secretary General quoted thus:

When you are working to combat a disastrous and growing emergency, you should use every tool at your disposal. HIV/AIDS is the worst epidemic humanity has ever faced. It has spread further, faster and with more catastrophic long-term effects than any other disease. Its impact has become a devastating obstacle to development. Broadcast media have tremendous reach and influence, particularly with young people, who represent the future and who are the key to any successful fight against HIV/AIDS. We must seek to engage these powerful organizations as full partners in the fight to halt HIV/AIDS through awareness, prevention, and education.”

The media is a very powerful tool in the formation of opinion in any society. It is therefore of the greatest essence that journalists exercise the power of their pens judiciously.

Hutson and Liddiard (1994) argued that media representation is the primary source of information on social problems for many people. The power of the media is also manifested when reporting on HIV/AIDS. Media can clearly contribute in educating those who are HIV negative to take care of their health and to avoid contracting the virus, while at the same time learning to live with friends, relatives and neighbours who are positive. Likewise, the media can help those who are positive to live better with this condition and to get the best out of life. All this depends on how journalists, address the task of reporting and writing on HIV and AIDS. Can the media proactively disseminate accurate, objective, balanced and non-judgmental information on this subject? This is the big question.

Unlike other issues, HIV poses unique challenges to journalists. Since the first case of HIV/AIDS was reported in Kenya in the early 1980’s, society has yet to come to terms with this epidemic (Kihu & Ute, 2002). Necessary preventive measures have largely failed to be embraced, while those infected and affected have been stigmatised. Journalists have a critical role in correcting this situation. They have the social responsibility to report on matters relating to HIV/AIDS, and must observe ethical reporting while doing so.  

The media have indeed a pivotal role to play in the fight against AIDS. It is often said that education is the vaccine against HIV. Many media organizations are rising to the challenge by promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS and educating listeners and viewers about the facts of the epidemic and how to stop it.

According to national surveys conducted in the United States, 72% of Americans identify television, radio and newspapers as their primary source of information about HIV/AIDS, more than doctors, friends and family. Similar statistics have also been reported in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world.

In a survey carried out in India more than 70% of respondents said they had received their information about HIV/AIDS from television.

Clearly, media organizations have an enormous influence in educating and empowering individuals to avoid contracting HIV. Doing so with maximum efficiency, however, requires a clear understanding of the challenges and the obstacles to widespread and effective HIV-prevention education.

Media has a responsibility to ensure that HIV/AIDS remains in the public domain. To achieve this, it is important that journalists first consciously overcome the denial complex and shifting of blame and strive to write objectively on the subject.

Reporters have therefore to be careful not to be carried away by scaring, discriminative and uninformed sources that hide the truth and influence the public to dwell on issues peripheral to prevention and control. Such reports mislead the public and policy makers on issues critical to HIV/AIDS.

Wellings and Macdowall (2000) affirm that “the strength of the mass media lies in helping to put issues on the public agenda, in reinforcing local efforts, in raising consciousness about issues and in conveying simple information”. Adeseye and Ibagere (1999) reaffirm the powerful influence of media on the public when they hold forth that “agenda setting implies that the mass media predetermine what issues are regarded as important at a given time in a given society”. Similarly, the development media theory advocates that the media could be used to facilitate the process of socioeconomic development of a country (Baran and Davis, 1995). The theory further holds that by supporting development efforts, the media could be an aid to society at large. In other words, the media particularly the broadcast media could and should be used to rally people, infrastructure and institutions in aid of national development in modern societies. The media particularly the television medium can help to prioritize societal issues (Osakue et al, 2010).

Osakue et al, (2010) noted that Nigeria is not left out as various programmes and paid advertisements are lined up on both television and radio media with the aim of increasing the HIV/AIDS awareness and education among the general public. Programmes such as “Images”, “Behind the Siege” and “Wetindey” are aired on the television stations around the country that comprise both satellite and terrestrial stations. “Images” is shown on Ondo State Radio Vision Corporation Stations (OSRC), Independent Television (ITV) Benin and many other stations across the nation, “Behind the Siege” is shown on Silver bird Station that is on Satellite and “Wetindey” is on Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) network service, which is viewed nationwide. On radio, programmes such as “Flavours”, “One Thing at a Time”, and others have been on the air for some years in Nigeria (Osakue et al, 2010).

1.2  Statement of the Problem

Statistics from UNAIDS (2012) shows that presently, 8,000 people will lose their lives to HIV/AIDS and another 14,000-10 people in every single minute will become newly infected.

The realities of today’s global epidemic are graver than the worst-case prediction of ten years ago. Aids killed more than three million people in 2003 and an estimated five million people are being infected bringing to approximate four million people, the number currently living with the virus. More than 20 have already died since the first clinical evidence of the disease was reported in 1981. (WHO Statistics, 2012).

According to UNESCO (2011), sub-Sahara African countries remains the most affected region of the world, with one in five adults across Southern African now HIV-infected. In many areas AIDS is erasing decades of progress made in human development as young productive people die, household fall into poverty, and the cost of the epidemic rises. The average life expectancy around the world has declined from 62-47 years and continue to fall.

In different parts of the world, the epidemic also show no sign of abating. The epidemic have left 1.7 million children as orphans, already statistics show that 18.8 million people around the world have died of HIV/AIDS (statistic report UNAIDS, 2009).

HIV/AIDS affect virtually all strata of the society, HIV prevalence is increasing. A trend toward growing infection rate is also evident in the middle east and north Africa.

Seeing the prevalence of the virus, one would have expected that people will start to take preventive measure toward combating the disease but things are still the way they are, why then is it like that;

ü    Is it that there is no enough information about the epidemic?

ü    Is the government and mass media not doing anything toward the reduction of the number of person’s that are infected with the virus?

ü    Why is the number of person infected with HIV/AIDS on the increase.

It is these and many question that prompted the researcher into choosing the topic in question as it is envisioned that if the questions are answered, it will go a long way toward finding a lasting solution to the problem of HIV/AIDS.

1.3  Research Questions

The following research questions shall guide the study:

1. What is the impact of the mass media in the fight against HIV/AIDS?
2. Is there any relationship between the mass media and the fight against HIV/AIDS?
3. What is the effectiveness of the mass media towards HIV/AIDS?
4. What is the attitude of people toward the information about HIV/AIDS given by the mass media?

1.4  Research Hypothesis

1. There is no significant relationship between the type of mass media and the fight against HIV/AIDS
2. There is no significant relationship between the mass media and fight against HIV/AIDS
3. There is no significant relationship between the effectiveness of the mass media and the fight against HIV/AIDS
4. There is no significant relationship between people’s attitude towards information regarding HIV/AIDS and the spread of HIV/AIDS

1.5  Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to find out the place of the mass media and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Specifically, the study will seek to investigate the following:

• To examine the types of mass media and the fight against HIV/AIDS
• The impact of the mass media in the fight against HIV/AIDS
• The effectiveness of the mass media towards HIV/AIDS
• The attitude of people towards information regarding HIV/AIDS

1.6  Significance of the Study

This study will be of great benefit to the society, policy makers, the media, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), teachers and individuals.

The study will be of benefit to the society since it will help to put a control to one of the dreaded social problem in the society (HIV/AIDS).

The study will benefit policy makers in that it will guide them on the menace of HIV/AIDS and also guide them on areas to focus on when formulating policies.

The media will also benefit from the study since the knowledge of it will help to educate them more on HIV/AIDS and how they can contribute in its (HIV/AIDS) extermination.

The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) will equally benefit from this study in that it will help them to organize programmes that will help to tackle the menace of HIV/AIDS.

Furthermore, the study will guide teachers on what and how to teach the HIV/AIDS to the students while inculcating in them, spirit of abstinence.

Lastly, the study will help to educate individuals on the preventive measure to take in order not to contract the virus.

1.7  Scope/Delimitation of the Study

This study covers the mass media and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Delta State University. The study is however limited to one (1) campus out of the three (3) campuses of the university.

1.8  Operational Definition of Terms

The following terms shall be defined as used in the study:

1. 1.HIV: This means the virus that cause illness thereby leading to AIDS after some time.
2. 2.AIDS: this is a disease caused by a virus transmitted in the body fluid which attacks the body’s ability to resist infecetion and in some cases causes death.
3. 3.Contracting: this means to get or develop a disease
4. 4.CD4: these are types of immune system cells that are relatively reduced in the system of persons infected with HIV.