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

Randolph, Carolyn A.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/95629 Copy

Description

Title

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

Author(s)

Randolph, Carolyn A.

Issue Date

2016-07-15

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Treichler, Paula

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Treichler, Paula

Committee Member(s)

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

Department of Study

Inst of Communications Rsch

Discipline

Communications

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

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

Abstract

"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."

Graduation Semester

2016-12

Type of Resource

text

Permalink

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

Copyright and License Information

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.

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