Forgetting or Disguising? HIV/AIDS in the Italian Newspapers in the Twenty-First Century

In the first two decades of the 21st century HIV/AIDS still was a global emergency. Although Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) had led HIV/AIDS to become a chronic disease in most Western countries, in Italy HIV/AIDS still affected thousands of people and hundreds of new contagions were detected every year. Nevertheless, the Italian mass media barely covered news on HIV/AIDS in Italy or in the areas where the epidemic spread (Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, South, and Southeast Asia). Was the most relevant epidemic of that time simply forgotten or was it intentionally disguised? After having contributed to ‘inventing AIDS’ in the 1980-1990s, what role did the Italian mass media play in letting HIV/AIDS disappear from the public eye? Did the press of different political attitudes (conservative, labour, radical, catholic, etc.) cope with this issue in the same way? As almost no historical work on HIV/AIDS and on HIV/AIDS mediatization in Italy is available yet, this chapter is a first attempt to answer these questions. A quantitative (not only lexicometric) and qualitative analysis of the most relevant Italian newspapers of different political positions will enable this contribute not only to explain the attitude of the mass media towards the epidemic in the post-crisis period, but also to show the terms in which HIV/AIDS was framed, reported, and illustrated. Particular attention will be paid to comparing the Italian case to other Western countries to show similarities/peculiarities/exchanges between the attitudes of the Italian newspapers towards HIV/AIDS and the way the foreign press reports HIV/AIDS-related news.