A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how users of HIV-prevention treatment are represented in British newspapers

Jones, Lucy; Collins, Luke

Abstract

This research reports on newspaper representations of PrEP, a HIV-prevention drug recently made available on a trial basis to at-risk individuals in England. Using corpus-assisted queer critical discourse analysis, we investigate the linguistic representations of the users of PrEP within three leading British newspapers from across the political spectrum between 2014-18. We find that users of PrEP are most frequently positioned as 'men who have sex with men' or 'gay men', a representation that we argue limits public awareness of HIV itself, and of available HIV prevention. Furthermore, while the most left-leaning newspaper in our corpus focuses on the human benefit of PrEP, the most right-leaning newspaper takes a moralistic stance which frames gay men as risk-taking and therefore less deserving of healthcare funding than other groups. We therefore argue that certain representations of PrEP's beneficiaries are implicitly homophobic, and that most representations are unhelpfully restrictive.

Citation

Jones, L., & Collins, . L. (2020). A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how users of HIV-prevention treatment are represented in British newspapers. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(2), 202-225. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.20002.jon

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 23, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Sep 7, 2020
• Publication Date: Sep 7, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 24, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 7, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Language and Sexuality
• Print ISSN: 2211-3770
• Electronic ISSN: 2211-3789
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 202-225
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.20002.jon
• Keywords: PrEP; HIV; corpus linguistics; queer critical discourse analysis, homophobia
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4332406
• Publisher URL: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jls.20002.jon
• Additional Information: Jones, L., & Collins, . L. (2020). A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how users of HIV-prevention treatment are represented in British newspapers. Journal of Language and Sexuality, 9(2), 202-225. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.20002.jon; ; © John Benjamins Publishing Company. The publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.