A textual analysis of abstinence, be faithful, condom-use materials for HIV prevention at University Campuses in KwaZulu-Natal, 2006-2009.
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Date
2014
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Abstract
Prevention campaigns in print – advocating safer sex behaviour through Abstinence, Be faithful
and Condom-use advocacy (ABC) based on various theories and models of behaviour change –
inadvertently facilitate constructions of representations of HIV and AIDS and position the target
readers through discursive strategies. The research contributes to the growing literature that
explores how issues of HIV and AIDS prevention that relate to the University of KwaZulu-Natal
(UKZN), Durban University of Technology (DUT) and University of Zululand (UniZulu)
students can be best addressed in order to achieve the desired goals that sexual behaviour
campaigns set for themselves. An eclectic framework is applied that combines conceptual
frameworks within the poststructuralist paradigm, together with ethnomethodology through
focus group discussions and key informant interviews that aim to inform the methodological
framework. Poststructural approaches privilege different concepts, for example, ideology and
discourse, from which representations of phenomena ensue. Poststructuralist understandings
inform Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) augmented by Social Semiotics is employed to
investigate and theorise the role discourse plays in the construction and reproduction of HIV and
AIDS print prevention messages meant to persuade individuals to engage in safer sex practices.
The interrogation of texts requires a framing that looks at representations, how they are made in
context and how people engage with them. Hence CDA, together with Social Semiotics, is used
to examine underlying themes, constructs and assumptions of messages and meanings embedded
in linguistic and visual codes used in the texts. Focus group discussions examine how meanings
are negotiated and interpreted by the university students. The eclectic framework has not only
enabled a rigorous and schematic analytical tool, but also an ethnographic approach that
stimulated dialogue on HIV and AIDS print prevention texts between the researcher and the
university students and between university students themselves. The poststructuralist approach
offered exploration of representation, language and interpretation by linking notions of text to
context and by so doing demonstrates how discourses of power can help understanding of how
identities are constructed through positioning of (subjects) students with regard to how they
negotiate meanings from texts. The campaigns seem to reflect a lack of awareness of unequal
relations of peer pressure, power and knowledge between sex partners. Strategies used in the
texts range from apocalyptic, risk ideology woven through covert attacks on deviant sexual
behaviours; infused in the language and visual features arises the notion that the body is under
scrutiny, relating this to Foucauldian self-surveillance and self-care, responsibility and
empowerment urging informed sexual choices. Invariably, this translates to urging ability to
control the body’s eroticism, sexual desires and sexuality. Counter discourses, challenging
hegemonic masculinity; discourses of power, discourses of change, also prevail in the printbased
HIV prevention campaigns. Noting that there can never be a single totalizing meaning and
that texts would be subject to multiple meaning/s, there is still a need to design print-based HIV
and AIDS prevention campaigns that persuade students to practise safer sex. The thesis
concludes by recommending from the findings that there is a need to explore issues of etechnology/
computer-mediated communication through use of interactivity to continue to
encourage safer sex practices. Further issues of promoting self-love ([masturbation] that was
suggested by students) would be worth exploring. Finally, a fresher approach to the promotion of
condoms that specifically targets university students, that is, re-sexualizing the condom rather
desexualizing it, would further enhance the motivation for condom-use.
Description
Ph. D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.
Keywords
Sexual ethics -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal., Condom use -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal., HIV infections -- Complications -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal., HIV-associated lipodystrophy syndrome -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal., Theses -- Culture, communication and media studies.