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Writing for digital news about HIV criminalization in Canada

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For years, HIV activists in Canada have expressed serious concerns about the stigmatizing and sensational
way that HIV criminalization is portrayed in the mainstream press. Colin Hastings suggests conditions of convergence journalism make it exceedingly difficult for reporters to disrupt the genre of crime stories about HIV criminalization in which stigmatizing discourses proliferate.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 30, 2024

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This video discusses the issue of HIV criminalization in Canada, highlighting that the country is a leader in prosecuting individuals living with HIV for non-disclosure, an approach that is deemed harmful to human rights and public health. Activists, particularly from African, Caribbean, and Black communities, have raised concerns about the stigmatizing representation of HIV in mainstream media. A project initiated in 2017 sought to analyze news articles from 1989 to 2017 about this issue, revealing discriminatory portrayals and over-representation of marginalized communities as public health threats.

The project aimed to engage journalists and understand how narratives around HIV criminalization are constructed in newsrooms, focusing on how media reporting often relies on police communications, thus perpetuating harmful stereotypes and limiting nuanced understanding. Although challenges exist in changing the dominant crime narrative, activists are developing strategies to create counter-discourses and build solidarity across various movements advocating for more accurate media representation.

The findings emphasize the detrimental impact of reduced resources in journalism, which compromises the quality of news and its role in addressing public health and social issues. Ensuring sound, in-depth reporting is critical for informed responses to current crises.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.000 --> 00:01.180
So this work arises out

00:01.180 --> 00:03.205
of the really unfortunate context in Canada,

00:03.295 --> 00:05.365
where Canada continues to be

00:05.885 --> 00:08.205
a world leader in using the criminal law

00:08.205 --> 00:10.925
to prosecute people living with HIV in instances

00:10.925 --> 00:13.765
of non-disclosure, something that broadly is referred to

00:13.765 --> 00:15.085
as HIV criminalization.

00:15.985 --> 00:17.445
And the really unfortunate part is

00:17.445 --> 00:20.845
that Canada's a world leader at a time when there is broad

00:21.125 --> 00:23.845
consensus that HIV criminalization is an affront

00:23.945 --> 00:26.045
to the human rights of people living with HIV

00:26.265 --> 00:29.765
and affront to public health, that the Canadian law is out

00:29.765 --> 00:32.285
of step with current biomedical science on

00:32.305 --> 00:33.485
how HIV is transmitted.

00:34.185 --> 00:36.685
And so this work is just really a small part

00:36.685 --> 00:41.245
of a much broader, activist research movement in Canada,

00:41.665 --> 00:44.405
that has existed for decades that is about trying

00:44.425 --> 00:47.765
to illuminate these harms in order to raise public concern,

00:48.265 --> 00:51.685
about how damaging and harmful HIV criminalization is.

00:51.745 --> 00:54.485
And one of the main spaces that we see this,

00:54.805 --> 00:58.405
stigmatizing and discriminatory discourse take place

00:58.465 --> 00:59.565
is in the mainstream press.

00:59.705 --> 01:04.045
So for decades, activists, particularly activists who,

01:04.425 --> 01:06.885
work with and represent African Caribbean

01:06.885 --> 01:09.925
and black communities, have expressed really deep concerns

01:09.925 --> 01:12.525
about how this issue is portrayed in the mainstream press.

01:13.465 --> 01:16.085
And so in 2017, colleagues

01:16.085 --> 01:18.765
and I set out to, do a project

01:18.765 --> 01:20.765
that was about reviewing every news article

01:20.765 --> 01:24.645
that it had been produced about this issue from 1989 when

01:24.645 --> 01:26.805
the first charges were laid until 2017.

01:26.945 --> 01:29.485
And what we found was some really striking evidence

01:29.745 --> 01:31.325
of the stigmatizing

01:31.465 --> 01:32.685
and discriminatory way

01:32.685 --> 01:34.525
that this issue is portrayed in the press,

01:34.955 --> 01:38.605
that it drastically over represents cases that involve,

01:39.185 --> 01:40.885
people from African Caribbean

01:40.945 --> 01:43.045
and black communities who have migrated to Canada.

01:43.385 --> 01:44.965
And what you see when you look at all

01:44.965 --> 01:46.845
of the stories over the decades is

01:46.845 --> 01:48.965
that there is this like standard type of

01:49.735 --> 01:51.925
crime story about HIV criminalization

01:52.475 --> 01:55.005
that is representing people as threats to public health,

01:55.105 --> 01:57.365
but also this like imagined white

01:57.365 --> 01:59.005
settler construction of Canada.

01:59.305 --> 02:01.285
So the study was useful

02:01.285 --> 02:03.205
because it got some attention in the mainstream press

02:03.305 --> 02:07.045
and demonstrated to readers that this type of reporting,

02:07.065 --> 02:09.245
is not in the interest of public health, that it

02:09.885 --> 02:12.445
reproduces some of the most harmful stereotypes about

02:12.445 --> 02:13.565
people living with HIV.

02:14.065 --> 02:15.845
But it didn't really provide us with a sense of what

02:15.845 --> 02:16.925
to actually do about that.

02:17.065 --> 02:19.205
So the project that we're talking about today was about

02:19.375 --> 02:21.685
going into newsrooms, talking with journalists,

02:22.065 --> 02:24.205
and trying to understand how these stories happen in the

02:24.205 --> 02:27.245
first place so that activists are, are better informed about

02:27.245 --> 02:29.285
how to intervene in those types of stories

02:29.745 --> 02:32.005
and how to hopefully produce a a counter discourse.

02:32.435 --> 02:34.325
Yeah, so I think there are sort of three main areas

02:34.325 --> 02:35.885
that I'm hoping this work can extend.

02:36.225 --> 02:37.565
The first are critical race studies

02:37.595 --> 02:38.765
that are based in the work

02:39.025 --> 02:42.565
of activist scholars like Stuart Hall, who show that,

02:42.565 --> 02:44.765
you know, the news is not a straightforward representation

02:45.065 --> 02:48.525
of the social world, that the sort

02:48.525 --> 02:52.405
of status quo definitions of social reality are produced

02:52.425 --> 02:53.605
and reproduced in the press

02:53.605 --> 02:56.365
because powerful actors in society have

02:56.365 --> 02:58.685
disproportionate access to the press. They're able to

02:59.145 --> 03:02.245
Insert their perspectives into news discourse,

03:02.305 --> 03:03.805
in really powerful sort of ways.

03:04.025 --> 03:07.605
And scholars who are working at, sort

03:07.605 --> 03:09.405
of the intersection of public discourse

03:09.425 --> 03:11.965
and HIV have shown that, you know,

03:11.975 --> 03:14.125
we've never known the HIV virus

03:14.925 --> 03:16.125
separate from media discourse

03:16.125 --> 03:20.285
that has reported it inaccurately, that has,

03:20.435 --> 03:24.405
amplified fear and stigma and has sort of drawn out

03:24.405 --> 03:26.605
or been really helpful for showing what some

03:26.605 --> 03:28.045
of those most common tropes are.

03:28.545 --> 03:30.285
And so trying to extend those types

03:30.285 --> 03:32.125
of works ethnographically by showing

03:32.185 --> 03:34.605
how these discourses actually take hold in

03:34.605 --> 03:36.045
are produced in the first place.

03:36.585 --> 03:39.445
And that ethnographic approach is really deeply informed

03:39.625 --> 03:42.925
by a long lineage of newsroom ethnographies,

03:42.965 --> 03:45.085
particularly newer ones that are showing

03:45.225 --> 03:49.565
how these rapid changes to how news is produced, circulated,

03:49.625 --> 03:52.685
and consumed comes to bear on the actual work practices

03:52.745 --> 03:53.765
of reporters themselves.

03:54.105 --> 03:57.445
So this, ethnographic approach is an institutional

03:57.645 --> 04:00.565
ethnography, which is a particular approach to sociology

04:00.675 --> 04:02.685
that is dev, developed

04:02.685 --> 04:04.965
by feminist Marxist scholar Dorothy Smith

04:05.545 --> 04:07.205
and institutional ethnographers and

04:07.205 --> 04:09.885
and Dorothy Smith are putting forward a quite a radical

04:10.205 --> 04:11.285
critique of of sociology.

04:11.445 --> 04:14.445
I think most often as sociologists were instructed

04:14.475 --> 04:17.165
that if we want to begin a study, the first step is to sort

04:17.165 --> 04:19.405
of begin in the literature, identify

04:19.405 --> 04:21.365
what theoretical perspective you're gonna be taking,

04:22.025 --> 04:24.285
go out into the world and do some sort of observation

04:24.785 --> 04:27.605
and then mobilize those observations to prove

04:27.705 --> 04:28.725
or to extend a theory.

04:29.185 --> 04:31.085
And institutional ethnography is doing

04:31.085 --> 04:32.245
something a little bit different.

04:32.355 --> 04:35.245
It's suggesting that our study should start in the actual

04:35.725 --> 04:40.045
everyday material experiences of people's activities

04:40.705 --> 04:42.645
should sort of expand beyond that to show

04:42.705 --> 04:45.205
how people's work is hooked into

04:45.225 --> 04:47.765
and made possible that is happening at cross time

04:47.765 --> 04:50.365
and space that's happening in, in other social settings.

04:50.905 --> 04:52.685
And the objective is to show

04:52.865 --> 04:55.725
how broad social organization is accomplished.

04:56.225 --> 04:59.485
And institutional ethnographic work is embedded in activism.

04:59.625 --> 05:02.685
The goal is to show activists how the conditions

05:02.685 --> 05:04.965
that they're mobilizing against are produced in the first

05:04.965 --> 05:08.325
place so that their interventions can be better informed.

05:08.905 --> 05:11.965
And so in this study that's about trying to show

05:12.225 --> 05:16.005
how the social discourse on HIV criminalization is produced,

05:16.145 --> 05:18.885
how it's put together, it was about going into newsrooms,

05:18.915 --> 05:21.885
talking about talking with reporters, trying

05:21.885 --> 05:23.045
to understand the work

05:23.045 --> 05:24.965
that they actually do, in the first place.

05:25.605 --> 05:27.405
I think one of the main findings, like I said,

05:27.405 --> 05:29.325
this discourse around HIV

05:29.325 --> 05:30.965
and HIV criminalization is not new.

05:30.995 --> 05:32.845
It's existed for as long as the virus has,

05:33.465 --> 05:37.245
but what the study shows is that in the current conditions

05:37.345 --> 05:40.365
of conversions journalism, which is a, a,

05:40.405 --> 05:43.165
a global phenomenon, it's very difficult for journalists

05:43.165 --> 05:44.525
to disrupt the sort

05:44.525 --> 05:48.005
of standard crime genre story about HIV criminalization.

05:48.475 --> 05:50.165
It's not to say that it doesn't happen

05:50.265 --> 05:51.325
or that over the course

05:51.325 --> 05:53.765
of my study there wasn't really powerful

05:53.905 --> 05:56.365
and effective journalism that spoke truth to power,

05:57.105 --> 06:00.805
But that there is, a pressure on journalists today

06:01.105 --> 06:02.685
to do more with less,

06:02.785 --> 06:05.765
to produce more stories in a shorter period of time

06:06.305 --> 06:09.285
across a wider range of platforms,

06:09.435 --> 06:14.165
with less resources staff and time to produce nuanced

06:14.225 --> 06:17.685
or complex stories about an issue like HIV criminalization.

06:17.825 --> 06:20.325
And when they're faced with this type of pressure,

06:20.345 --> 06:24.925
understandably, what they often do is go to texts,

06:24.925 --> 06:27.085
source texts that they can repurpose

06:27.145 --> 06:28.925
and sort of transfer into news texts.

06:28.925 --> 06:31.165
And what we found was that more often than not,

06:31.165 --> 06:34.885
journalists are turning to police communications materials

06:35.265 --> 06:38.325
and sort of filtering those into to news texts.

06:38.705 --> 06:41.565
So what this means is that you obsessively have the police

06:41.635 --> 06:43.085
setting the agenda

06:43.145 --> 06:45.965
and discourse on issues like HIV criminalization.

06:46.465 --> 06:49.125
And so we would want to think about what the implications of

06:49.125 --> 06:51.365
that are for how we understand police

06:51.585 --> 06:53.765
as knowledge brokers in our society.

06:54.545 --> 06:57.405
The other main finding that comes from this study though is

06:57.405 --> 07:00.085
that these news discourses as powerful

07:00.265 --> 07:03.845
and as deeply embedded as they may be, are not univocal

07:03.845 --> 07:07.085
that activists develop very strategic,

07:07.705 --> 07:11.525
and, creative ways to intervene on this discourse

07:11.745 --> 07:13.285
to produce counter discourses

07:13.825 --> 07:17.405
and to disrupt, this type of, this type of news story.

07:17.495 --> 07:19.845
First of all, I think there are really important

07:19.845 --> 07:22.805
opportunities to build solidarity across movements

07:23.225 --> 07:24.925
who struggle to receive accurate

07:25.025 --> 07:26.685
and nuanced representation in the press.

07:26.865 --> 07:30.365
So even though we might think about, these types

07:30.365 --> 07:32.685
of movements in isolation, there's ways

07:32.685 --> 07:35.205
that activists can come together and share resources

07:35.225 --> 07:37.845
and strategies for effectively intervening on,

07:37.845 --> 07:38.885
on this type of reporting.

07:39.785 --> 07:41.325
The other main, I think, conclusion

07:41.505 --> 07:43.685
and thing that we have to take really seriously is that cuts

07:43.685 --> 07:47.765
to journalism have hugely negative impacts on the public

07:47.795 --> 07:49.005
good and on public health.

07:49.255 --> 07:52.285
We're currently dealing with overlapping social,

07:52.475 --> 07:54.925
environmental, and public health crises.

07:55.265 --> 07:57.605
And in order to think sociologically about them,

07:58.105 --> 07:59.605
to understand them or just

07:59.605 --> 08:01.205
to live our lives in these conditions,

08:01.585 --> 08:03.965
we need really sound information upon which to,

08:04.025 --> 08:05.285
to base these responses.

08:05.905 --> 08:10.605
And quality, in depth news reporting is really integral

08:10.605 --> 08:10.805
to that.

00:00 - So this work arises out of the really unfortunate context in Canada, where Canada continues to be a world leader in using the criminal law to prosecute people living with HIV in instances of non-disclosure, something that broadly is referred to

00:13 - as HIV criminalization. And the really unfortunate part is that Canada's a world leader at a time when there is broad consensus that HIV criminalization is an affront to the human rights of people living with HIV and affront to public health, that the Canadian law is out of step with current biomedical science on how HIV is transmitted. And so this work is just really a small part of a much broader, activist research movement in Canada,

00:41 - that has existed for decades that is about trying to illuminate these harms in order to raise public concern, about how damaging and harmful HIV criminalization is. And one of the main spaces that we see this, stigmatizing and discriminatory discourse take place is in the mainstream press. So for decades, activists, particularly activists who, work with and represent African Caribbean and black communities, have expressed really deep concerns about how this issue is portrayed in the mainstream press.

01:13 - And so in 2017, colleagues and I set out to, do a project that was about reviewing every news article that it had been produced about this issue from 1989 when the first charges were laid until 2017. And what we found was some really striking evidence of the stigmatizing and discriminatory way that this issue is portrayed in the press, that it drastically over represents cases that involve,

01:39 - people from African Caribbean and black communities who have migrated to Canada. And what you see when you look at all of the stories over the decades is that there is this like standard type of crime story about HIV criminalization that is representing people as threats to public health, but also this like imagined white settler construction of Canada. So the study was useful

02:01 - because it got some attention in the mainstream press and demonstrated to readers that this type of reporting, is not in the interest of public health, that it reproduces some of the most harmful stereotypes about people living with HIV. But it didn't really provide us with a sense of what to actually do about that. So the project that we're talking about today was about going into newsrooms, talking with journalists, and trying to understand how these stories happen in the

02:24 - first place so that activists are, are better informed about how to intervene in those types of stories and how to hopefully produce a a counter discourse. Yeah, so I think there are sort of three main areas that I'm hoping this work can extend. The first are critical race studies that are based in the work of activist scholars like Stuart Hall, who show that, you know, the news is not a straightforward representation of the social world, that the sort

02:48 - of status quo definitions of social reality are produced and reproduced in the press because powerful actors in society have disproportionate access to the press. They're able to Insert their perspectives into news discourse, in really powerful sort of ways. And scholars who are working at, sort of the intersection of public discourse and HIV have shown that, you know, we've never known the HIV virus

03:14 - separate from media discourse that has reported it inaccurately, that has, amplified fear and stigma and has sort of drawn out or been really helpful for showing what some of those most common tropes are. And so trying to extend those types of works ethnographically by showing how these discourses actually take hold in are produced in the first place. And that ethnographic approach is really deeply informed

03:39 - by a long lineage of newsroom ethnographies, particularly newer ones that are showing how these rapid changes to how news is produced, circulated, and consumed comes to bear on the actual work practices of reporters themselves. So this, ethnographic approach is an institutional ethnography, which is a particular approach to sociology that is dev, developed by feminist Marxist scholar Dorothy Smith and institutional ethnographers and

04:07 - and Dorothy Smith are putting forward a quite a radical critique of of sociology. I think most often as sociologists were instructed that if we want to begin a study, the first step is to sort of begin in the literature, identify what theoretical perspective you're gonna be taking, go out into the world and do some sort of observation and then mobilize those observations to prove or to extend a theory. And institutional ethnography is doing

04:31 - something a little bit different. It's suggesting that our study should start in the actual everyday material experiences of people's activities should sort of expand beyond that to show how people's work is hooked into and made possible that is happening at cross time and space that's happening in, in other social settings. And the objective is to show how broad social organization is accomplished. And institutional ethnographic work is embedded in activism.

04:59 - The goal is to show activists how the conditions that they're mobilizing against are produced in the first place so that their interventions can be better informed. And so in this study that's about trying to show how the social discourse on HIV criminalization is produced, how it's put together, it was about going into newsrooms, talking about talking with reporters, trying to understand the work that they actually do, in the first place. I think one of the main findings, like I said,

05:27 - this discourse around HIV and HIV criminalization is not new. It's existed for as long as the virus has, but what the study shows is that in the current conditions of conversions journalism, which is a, a, a global phenomenon, it's very difficult for journalists to disrupt the sort of standard crime genre story about HIV criminalization. It's not to say that it doesn't happen or that over the course

05:51 - of my study there wasn't really powerful and effective journalism that spoke truth to power, But that there is, a pressure on journalists today to do more with less, to produce more stories in a shorter period of time across a wider range of platforms, with less resources staff and time to produce nuanced or complex stories about an issue like HIV criminalization. And when they're faced with this type of pressure, understandably, what they often do is go to texts,

06:24 - source texts that they can repurpose and sort of transfer into news texts. And what we found was that more often than not, journalists are turning to police communications materials and sort of filtering those into to news texts. So what this means is that you obsessively have the police setting the agenda and discourse on issues like HIV criminalization. And so we would want to think about what the implications of that are for how we understand police

06:51 - as knowledge brokers in our society. The other main finding that comes from this study though is that these news discourses as powerful and as deeply embedded as they may be, are not univocal that activists develop very strategic, and, creative ways to intervene on this discourse to produce counter discourses and to disrupt, this type of, this type of news story. First of all, I think there are really important opportunities to build solidarity across movements

07:23 - who struggle to receive accurate and nuanced representation in the press. So even though we might think about, these types of movements in isolation, there's ways that activists can come together and share resources and strategies for effectively intervening on, on this type of reporting. The other main, I think, conclusion and thing that we have to take really seriously is that cuts to journalism have hugely negative impacts on the public

07:47 - good and on public health. We're currently dealing with overlapping social, environmental, and public health crises. And in order to think sociologically about them, to understand them or just to live our lives in these conditions, we need really sound information upon which to, to base these responses. And quality, in depth news reporting is really integral to that.

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