Ully D Putri/Research Paper
Rhetoric of Social Change
November 14, 2011
What have changed since the 1980s?
Rhetoric of HIV/AIDS in News Report in Indonesia
Abstract
It has been 25 years since the first AIDS case was reported in Indonesia in 1987, yet the number
of HIV incidence in the country continues to increase significantly. Furthermore, the
predominant discourse surrounding the disease remains to be one of stigma and sexual
perversion. It is crucial, therefore, to examine how the discourse on HIV/AIDS have been
shaped, produced and reproduced at the national level and asked why, after 25 years, the rhetoric
behind the disease has not changed that much? In this paper I examine one aspect of HIV/AIDS
discourse in Indonesia by focusing my research on news about HIV/AIDS that are published in
Kompas national newspaper since 1983. Through a close examination at the framing and the
language used to narrate stories about HIV/AIDS this paper identifies the dominant rhetoric of
piety and morality that shape the news.
Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Indonesia, newspaper, piety
I still remember my first time going to a music concert with my friends. It was Alanis
Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill Tour in 1996. As much I as I enjoyed watching her performed on
stage, what lingered in my mind was not her fantastic performance but the fact that I was anxious
and scared throughout the whole concert. I remember I had a second thought just before I went to
her concert. I was not sure whether it was safe to go. The reason behind my anxiety was the
rumor that there was going to be a person carrying a needle with HIV who wanted to stab other
people in the concert. I was 16 years old; no matter how much I adored Ms. Morissette at that
time I did not want to risk my life and be infected by a deadly virus. HIV was scary. It could lead
to AIDS, which was equal to death, not to mention only bad people had it.
*
It has been almost 25 years since the first AIDS case was reported in Indonesia in 1987,
and 15 years have passed since I attended my first concert, yet for many Indonesians the fear of
the deadly virus still persists. Moreover, the number of HIV incidence in the country continues to
increase significantly. Only two decades after the first case was reported, the number of people
living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) has multiplied to 270,000. According to the 2010 United Nations
General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) country report, Indonesia’s epidemic is one of the
fastest-growing epidemics in Asia and it is most likely that it will remain so in the near
future. Based on WHO 2008 report of HIV/AIDS profiles in Indonesia, Injecting Drug Users
(IDU) comprised 40% of the high risk group, while the rest are female sex workers (22%),
clients of female sex worker (15%), men who have sex with men (4%), female partners of highrisk men (17%) and other (1%).
Knowing that HIV has a very complex discourse closely related to high level of
stigmatization, the published profiles of people living with HIV/AIDS further perpetuates
negative perception of the virus and those who are infected. In “AIDS and Its Metaphor,” Sontag
writes that the sexual transmission of HIV has made many people believe that this virus is a
calamity people bring to themselves, especially since AIDS is understood as a disease not only of
sexual excess but of perversity. Furthermore, she wrote that “An infectious disease whose
principal means of transmission is sexual practice necessarily puts at greater risk those who are
sexually more active –and is easy to view as punishment for that activity.” (2003: 153)
This kind of stigmatization has been proven to be harmful not only to the people living
with HIV/AIDS but also to government officials and public health workers who are striving to
reduce the spreading of this virus and to treat people living with HIV/AIDS. It is crucial,
therefore, to examine how the discourse on HIV/AIDS have been shaped, produced and
reproduced at the national level and asked why, after 25 years, the rhetoric behind the disease has
not changed that much. The answer to this question will not only help us understand how the
rhetoric influence public perception of the virus, but it will also shed lights on how this rhetoric
impedes government strategy in the long run to reduce the number of newly infected people.
In this paper I examine one aspect of HIV/AIDS discourse in Indonesia by focusing my
research on news about HIV/AIDS that are published in Kompas national newspaper since 1983.
The reason I choose to analyze Kompas is because it is a national newspaper with the largest
circulation in Indonesia since 1969 and it is considered to be the trusted source of information by
more than two millions readers. The paper was first established in 1965 and positions itself
similarly to The New York Times. Moreover, Kompas was one of the first newspapers in
Indonesia to introduce AIDS to the public discourse in 1983. Most of the early public knowledge
of HIV/AIDS came from the mass media and since Kompas is a trusted source of information for
many people in Indonesia, it quickly became the authority in creating public discourse on
HIV/AIDS and remains a key player at a national level.
Previous Studies of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia
Studies about HIV/AIDS in Indonesia have focused more on the epidemiology of the virus (e.g.,
Ford, Wirawan, Sumantera, Sawitri, et al, 2004; Hugo 2001; Ibrahim, Songwathana,
Boonyasopun, et al, 2010; Jazant and Riono 2004; Pisani, Girault, Gultom, Sukartini, et al, 2004)
than on the cultural dimension the issue. Within the past ten years anthropologists have done
some very interesting studies, though the numbers are still relatively small (e.g., Boellstorff
2010; Butt 2005; Imelda 2011; Kroeger 2003; Piper 2006). One exemplary study, for example,
by Boellstorff (2010) focused on the production of knowledge of HIV/AIDS in Makassar, south
Sulawesi, an island located in central Indonesia. He worked closely with gay men and male
transvestites, known in Indonesian language as waria (or roughly translated as shemale).
Drawing on Foucault’s theory of knowledge, he focused his research on testimony as a form of
asymptomatic knowledge production. Another contribution comes from Butt (2005) who worked
in Papua, which at the time of her research was the largest province in Indonesia, to analyze
rumors of HIV/AIDS and local perception of the virus. Kroeger’s focus was similar to Butt’s in
looking at how rumors about illness became a way for social groups to express concern about
their relationship to the community and state.
The most extensive research was done by Pisani (2008) through her book on HIV/AIDS
in Asia with a large focus in Indonesia and also by Imelda (2011) and Piper (2006) in their
dissertations. As a public health expert, Pisani (2008), who worked closely with drug users and
sex workers in different cities in Indonesia, argued for the importance of government
intervention in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. Imelda’s (2011) ethnographic
work examined a case study of two women’s organization advocating HIV prevention programs
in Jakarta, Indonesia. She found that seropositive women who are involved in both organizations
have reworked their identity from one of sinful and immoral women to innocent and devoted
mothers, thus creating a shift of how HIV is perceived by their community in Jakarta, Indonesia.
What once was considered as a virus for women without morals is now seen as a “disease of
devoted housewives.” Piper (2006) who also conducted an ethnographic study of HIV
communities in Indonesia looked closely at the Indonesians’ notion of risk and argued that
“HIV/AIDS programs based on Western biomedical and cultural models can create pockets of
misinformation and confusion when they fail to fully incorporate critical Indonesian cultural
categories, identities, and definitions.” (2006: V)
Unfortunately, there are not many studies that focus on how HIV/AIDS are covered in
the mass media. Throughout my field research in Indonesia during summer 2011 I only found
two books on news and HIV/AIDS that were both written by journalists (Harahap, 2003;
Julianto, 2002). These two books were compilations of newspapers articles written by Harahap
and Julianto on HIV/AIDS and they include short papers written for workshops and trainings on
HIV/AIDS news writing. Experts and researchers whom I interviewed mentioned a paper written
by Sciortino in 1996 that analyzed how HIV/AIDS were being written in the mass media during
1985 to 1995. Unfortunately I was not able to find a copy of the paper. This lack of a
comprehensive research on news coverage of HIV/AIDS in the country has made this study even
more significant.
The body of HIV/AIDS literature in Indonesia influences how I engage with the issues
surrounding the virus. My research examines how news about HIV/AIDS have been written in
the mass media and how rhetoric of HIV/AIDS conditions people’s perception of this infectious
disease.
Note to self:
Connect the dots between literature on rhetoric of social movements that we have learned in
class and included that in this section. Focus on how the rhetoric of us vs them in framing the
disease.
Next section: Findings
Themes that I have pulled out so far from reading the newspapers from 1983:
1. Early on (1983-1987) it’s a foreign disease. Only western & African people get them.
(Othering of the disease)
2. Perception of self (Indonesian society) as religious, pious, with good moral judgments
helps protect again the disease. (still 1983-1987)
3. When Indonesians began to get infected, rhetoric of HIV/AIDS has shifted to the disease
of the sinners: commercial sex workers and injecting drug users. Notice what’s missing
here: clients of sex workers are not (yet) seen as the sinners. Plus, on-going discourse on
how it is easier for women than for men to get infected (1987-late 1990s)
4. Terror and horror of not knowing how to treat people living with HIV/AIDS. On trial
drugs are expensive and they have bad side effects that could make the conditions of
people living with HIV/AIDS worsen. Having HIV still means getting AIDS (the
distinction is not clear) and it is still seen as death sentence. (1987-late 1990s)
5. 2000-2010: Drugs began to be available, more housewives are infected; reworking the
rhetoric to the disease of devoted wives, yet these type of news rarely get the front page
attention. It is placed instead in the health sections of the newspaper. HIV/AIDS activists
group and people living with the virus try to create a more positive image of the disease.
Kompas journalist began to be more careful and critical in writing about the disease.
Analysis: Note how more positive news about HIV/AIDS do not get placed in the front section
of the newspaper anymore. The worth of the news has decreased ( connect this with the media
theory of news cycle). As a result, what lingers in the public sphere are all the old negative
stories of the disease.