Framing HIV/AIDS: Evaluating Empathetic Journalism in Local Online Media

This study explores the practices of health journalism in mass media coverage of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) during World HIV/AIDS Day on the online media platform Pos-Kupang.com. It evaluates whether online news is written from a perspective of empathy towards ODHA or simply centers on tracking case statistics and reporting negative case distributions. Methods The research employed Zhongdan Pan and Gerald M. Kosicki's Framing Analysis model, operationalizing four structural text dimensions as framing devices: Syntactic, Script, Thematic, and Rhetorical. Data collection was conducted virtually by selecting all active news stories related to HIV/AIDS published by Pos-Kupang.com during December 2023. The framing analysis revealed that only two out of eight news stories integrated empathetic journalism, which was operationally identified by headlines written from the PLHIV perspective, active counter-stigmatization narratives, and the positioning of PLHIV as human subjects rather than passive victims. The remaining six articles failed to meet these criteria, instead employing sensationalized framing (such as focusing on teenage prostitution) and heavy reliance on quantitative case numbers. The rhetorical devices frequently relied on war metaphors and stigmatizing lexicons. This framing pattern was directly influenced by individual journalist subjectivity-specifically a lack of health communication training-and rigid media routines driven by strict deadlines and the traditional inverted-pyramid structure. While local online media consistently allocate coverage for World AIDS Month, they largely fail to embed empathetic journalism values due to structural limitations. The reporting heavily commodifies human suffering into statistical objects and sensational headlines. Consequently, this study fills a theoretical gap by expanding Shoemaker and Reese's hierarchy of influence into local health journalism. Practically, it provides an evidence-based recommendation for online editorial boards to move away from quantitative-centric framing and implement specialized health journalism training to foster non-discriminatory, supportive public health communication.