Captation et prévention

Abstract

This article is set within the field of the media construction of AIDS. Through discourse analysis the authors reconstitute the processes by which the language of the press frames AIDS in a fashion other than informative: rather within the “aim to capture.” They then examine the effects on reception of said discursive processes. They show that by highly dramatizing a message containing epidemiological information, one increases the sentiment of increased exposure to the risk of infection, the willingness to take preventive measures and to submit to coercive action in order to fight against the disease. The authors conclude that strategies that “aim to capture” are effective and thus useful when deployed under the guise of prevention.

Keywords

• France
• discourse analysis
• attention-seeking
• persuasion strategies
• HIV/AIDS