NCJ Number
128176
Journal
Communication Research Volume: 17 Issue: 6 Dated: special issue (December 1990) Pages: complete issue
Editor(s)
R Norton,
J Hughey
Date Published
1990
Length
154 pages
Annotation
This special journal issue explores the AIDS crisis in relation to HIV transmission in college-age students, cognitive responses to AIDS information, reaching those at risk, legal advocacy for children with AIDS, and HIV education for black urban adolescents.
Abstract
The introductory article briefly traces entry points for work and research in the areas of AIDS testing, discrimination, pediatric AIDS, disclosure, missed diagnoses, populations at risk, interactive caregiving, and infection of women in Africa. In the next article, Byrne's 1977 model of attitudes toward gay men and lesbians provides a framework for studying the effects of such attitudes on adolescent learning about AIDS transmission. It is shown that students with positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbians learn more about AIDS than those with negative attitudes. Another article describes a study of public service announcements related to AIDS and subjects' cognitive involvement with the issue of AIDS. Results indicate the importance of issue involvement as an audience segmentation characteristic. The next article reports a study that analyzed television public service announcements to determine how health communicators develop messages on sensitive health issues for mass audiences. Results show that public service announcements are generally not targeted according to risk behavior, but rather to general audiences. The final articles examine the language of physicians in the AIDS crisis, legal advocacy for school children with AIDS, and AIDS education and prevention activities for black urban youth. References, tables, and figures