'Callous, Cold and Deliberately Duplicitous': Racialization, Immigration and the Representation of HIV Criminalization in Canadian Mainstream Newspapers

Emotional storytelling: Sensational media and the creation of the HIV sexual predator

“…Given that we did not conduct a comparative analysis between cases of Black and white accused men, and that both men were economically middle class, our findings do not offer a full consideration of race and class, although it would be worthwhile for a future study to consider race and class differences across mediated content more directly. We chose to analyze two cases involving Black male defendants because of their overrepresentation in media coverage of nondisclosure cases (Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016), which we suggest intimates that Blackness trumps other social identity markers in terms of the volume and tone of mediated content.…”

“…In Canada, race is a ‘significant determinant of whether one is included in newspaper coverage’ of an HIV nondisclosure case (Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016: 23). Indeed, Black defendants represent 21 per cent of all nondisclosure cases, yet 68 per cent of media reporting concentrates on racialized defendants, 62 per cent of which involves Black, African and Caribbean men living with HIV (Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016: 23–24). Conversely, only 25 per cent of news coverage involves white defendants despite the fact that they make up 27 per cent of nondisclosure cases (Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016: 23–24).…”

“…Most research on HIV nondisclosure is socio-legal in nature and aims to problematize the application of law in these cases, but there is an emerging body of work demonstrating that nondisclosure cases are subject to intense and sensational media coverage that consistently overemphasizes the dangerousness of PLWHA and fails to accurately capture the risks of transmission. Media coverage often portrays accused persons as hypersexualized deviants, racialized ‘Others’ and AIDS criminals who threaten the (inter)national body politic (Kilty, 2014; Miller, 2005; Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016; Persson and Newman, 2008; Shevory, 2004). Conversely, the ‘victims’ in these cases are portrayed as innocent (predominantly) women who were betrayed by monstrous men, which reinforces the idea that all HIV-positive people are potential criminal subjects.…”

“…Conversely, the ‘victims’ in these cases are portrayed as innocent (predominantly) women who were betrayed by monstrous men, which reinforces the idea that all HIV-positive people are potential criminal subjects. Victims are often given space in media coverage to voice their anger and the emotional turmoil of having been betrayed by the accused, while the accused’s voice is typically absent, 4 which serves as a ‘powerful strategy for objectifying Black men facing HIV-related criminal charges’ (Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016: 37). While women are predominantly the victims in HIV nondisclosure cases they can also be perpetrators, especially as women are now the fastest growing subgroup of persons infected with HIV (Mykhalovskiy and Betteridge, 2012; Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016).…”

“…Victims are often given space in media coverage to voice their anger and the emotional turmoil of having been betrayed by the accused, while the accused’s voice is typically absent, 4 which serves as a ‘powerful strategy for objectifying Black men facing HIV-related criminal charges’ (Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016: 37). While women are predominantly the victims in HIV nondisclosure cases they can also be perpetrators, especially as women are now the fastest growing subgroup of persons infected with HIV (Mykhalovskiy and Betteridge, 2012; Mykhalovskiy et al, 2016). Despite this fact, analyses of women who have been criminalized for HIV nondisclosure are largely absent in the literature, a gap this article helps to fill.…”