Abstract:
This thesis provides a comprehensive view on the role of New Zealand gay publications and their reportage on the HIV/AIDS epidemic over the past 32 years, from 1980 to 2012. This is a subject area that is relatively new and yet to be fully investigated. Hence, this thesis aimed to fill the gap on the unexplored role of New Zealand gay publications, which contributed significantly to the growth of local gay community and identity affirmation over the past three decades. This thesis will examine the dynamics of the reportage by the gay publications on the devastating epidemic, critically questioning the responsibilities and role of the gay publications in this chaotic time. This thesis will also interrogate the factors and discourses that made New Zealand respond to the epidemic differently than the rest of the international response. Factors such as the framing of the epidemic as a public health crisis, as well as the introduction of a unique social engineering approach that leads to legislative changes will be examined. This thesis will present these core theoretical frameworks in the form of a historical analysis that attempts to map out the complex and interwoven relations that shaped the local responses to the epidemic. This thesis also utilises structured interviews in order to create a clearer yet personal historical account, and diverse viewpoints that contribute to further examination on the reportage. It illustrates how New Zealand gay publications had reported on the epidemic across three different decades, each with its own distinctive thematic patterns and characteristics, and how this ever-‐changing reportage on the epidemic affected our very understanding on the epidemic. Each of these influential factors, such as the medicalization of the epidemic towards the end of the examined period, the commercialisation of the gay publications as well as the changing legal landscape in New Zealand had contributed immensely on the shaping of the epidemic in New Zealand. As the thesis title suggests, the epidemic in the news media, arguably, is a form of social construction, and is moulded by various social discourses and institutions, and gay publications definitely are crucial in shaping the meaning of the epidemic within New Zealand society.