Print media of Assam and coverage of HIV/AIDS

Pages: 811-818
Deepak Upadhyaya (Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Tripura University, Agartala, Tripura)

With an objective to understand how the print media in Assam has been covering issues revolving around HIV/AIDS to sensitize the people in general and students in particular, of the impending peril associated with a lack of awareness with regard HIV/AID, a newspaper content analysis study was undertaken by the researcher. Five prominent daily newspapers available in the region were selected for the study. The Times of India, the largest English daily of the country, three newspapers from the regional English press, viz., The Assam Tribune, The Telegraph, and The Sentinel, and one from the vernacular language press-The Asomiya Pratidin were selected for the purpose of the present study. This paper is a summary of the results of the study of the one-year time frame of news stories of the above newspapers. Coverage pattern from 1st January2005 to 31st December 2005 in Assam regarding the dimensions of HIV/AIDS issues revealed what amount of importance was accorded by the print media with respect to its role in the society as an agenda-setter.