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.

• 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
• 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.