"But where are our moral heroes?"

An analysis of South African press reporting on children affected by HIV/AIDS

By: Meintjes H & Bray R
Published by: Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) / Children's Institute, University of Cape Town (UCT) , 2005

Messages conveyed both explicitly and implicitly in the media play an important role in the shaping of public understanding of issues, as well as associated policy, programme and popular responses to these issues. This paper applies discourse analysis to a series of articles on children affected by HIV/AIDS published in 2002/2003 in the English-medium South African press. The paper argues that in each instance, the particular moralism is questionable in the light of both empirical evidence and principles of human dignity underlying the South African constitution.