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The Struggles of Youth in a Time of HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention Programs : A discussion of the personal, interpersonal, and social challenges youth face against the backdrop of media-oriented campaign discourses in South Africa

Year: 2008
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis examines the different discourses on sexuality put forth by two prominent media-oriented HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaigns, Soul City and Love Life, in South Africa, and the ways in which they resonate with youth as they struggle to negotiate their own sexual identities in a rapidly changing society. It uses qualitative methods to consider the struggles of individuals in the personal, interpersonal, and larger social realms and how campaigns speak to them in different ways and, in turn, how youth negotiate their own identities. On the personal level, this thesis considers individual negotiations of knowledge and awareness of HIV/AIDS in the face of campaigns, particularly as they work within certain frameworks of morals and values. Then, on the interpersonal level, struggles concerning conflicting ideals and realities in love and relationships are considered, as are gender issues and the realities of exchange values and notions of responsibility in relationships. Building on personal and interpersonal struggles, larger social challenges involving the influence of traditional and modern values on sexual expression, as well as the influences of popular culture are discussed. In many ways this paper is a commentary on some of the major challenges of being young, but because of this it inherently lends itself to discussions of the challenges that campaigns face as they attempt to speak to youth about HIV/AIDS and where their good intentions might be failing. Furthermore, it also helps to understand the ways that the risk of HIV/AIDS has come to inform discourses on youth sexuality.
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W430029652
Cites: 45
Cited by: 2
Related to: 10