Black women, HIV/AIDS, and the media: communicating an epidemic in the hip hop era

"This study examines the mediated representation of HIV/AIDS and blackness. Using black feminist thought, and its organizing principles— intersectionality and the matrix of domination—this analysis investigates how race, gender, class, and disease work in concert to inform media texts by and about black women living with the virus. Furthermore, this examination employs a textual analysis of the AIDS storyline on the black situation comedy Girlfriends, the AIDS character Ana Wallace in the HBO film Life Support, and the self-representation of Rae Lewis-Thornton on her personal health blog ""Diva living with AIDS."" Each text generates alternative representations of HIV-positive black women that contest familiar stereotypes and clichés. Overall, this study helps scholars better understand the various meanings and definitions surrounding black women in the contemporary AIDS epidemic."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Randolph, Carolyn A.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Durham, Aisha
• Molina-Guzmán, Isabel
• Treichler, Paula
• Brown, Ruth Nicole

• HIV/AIDS
• Black women
• Media
• Popular culture

Statement dc:rights

• This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author's prior consent. Carolyn A. Randolph-Kato, 2016.

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/95629

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/95629