A Programme Like No Other: AIDS Prevention in French Television, 1995-1997

French television has broadcast health magazines since the 1950s. These magazines generally give more importance to medical expertise and curative medicine. In this article, I will present a programme that stands out from these, Sidamag, which was broadcast weekly in the mid-1990s. Targeting a young public and aiming to inform on preventive measures, Sidamag producers wanted to give space and voice to non-experts. These three goals were only partially achieved. Preventive measures were present in all Sidamag shows however, content analysis showed that only 14% focused on prevention in youth. Furthermore, medical discourse remained dominant although significant space was given to witness testimonials.

Abstract licence: CC BY-SA

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.