An interdisciplinary view of AIDS in the 1980s: On stage, Journalism and Health

Abstract

This article presents acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS, in Portuguese, or AIDS), when it appeared in the 1980s from an interdisciplinary perspective: on the one hand, signs, symptoms, diagnostic methods and treatment are addressed and are part of the biomedical model that participates in the interpretation of this disease; on the other, the representations of the disease in journalistic articles published in the newspaper O Globo, one of the most important in Brazil. Health and Journalism help to build ideas and understand concepts, prejudices and stigmas that relapse dwell and still fall on the disease that became known as the gay plague, one of several denominations attributed to AIDS when it arose. It is discussed whether it is possible to understand the health-disease process from a plural perspective, which goes beyond the limits of medicine. For this, we analyze texts from the newspaper O Globo, which deal with the HIV/AIDS binomial, paying special attention to the language and lexicography used in the elaboration of them, and taking into account the medical view about the disease in the 1980s. The work allows us to conclude that it is possible and necessary to face the health-disease process using not only biological phenomena, but using social, economic, political and environmental aspects, in front of various disciplinary fields.