Persuasive Campaign on HIV/AIDS

Discrimination against People Living With AIDS

Public awareness campaign should be the persuasive campaign developed to stop discrimination against people living with AIDS. HIV/AIDS was first discovered in the late twentieth century. It became an epidemic globally in a short period. People living with AIDS have suffered from discrimination in the society more than the disease itself.  People living with AIDS were stigmatized that led to negative effects on the care, social support, the quality of tests and the timing of testing they received (Liamputtong, 2013). Moreover, it discouraged people from seeking care, practicing safe sex, and getting a diagnosis. There were misconceptions that interaction with people living with AIDS would lead to contacting the disease and moral disapproval of the behavior of some groups, such as those who abuse drugs , homosexual, people practicing sex for money, and their nonconforming  behaviors would be misleading.

People living with AIDS suffered  from stigma  due to  ignorance, denial, shame, racism, taboo, social, fear, anxiety, moral judgments, xenophobia, and lack of information. Discrimination against people living with AIDS as a disease  cause by immoral  behavior was spread among  women  than men (Møllmann, 2004). Negative reaction included gossip and avoidance that led to stress, lowered perceived quality of life, and depression among the people living with AIDS. As a result, further action on HIV/AIDS topic was very crucial. Communication played an important role, since it disseminated messages that spread the knowledge to reduce risk behavior and prevented social stigma. HIV/AIDS campaign program created awareness through programs that educated people on prevention that directed towards the use of intravenous needles and change in the sexual practices.

Change of Attitude

The attitude change intended to prevent stigmatization and discrimination of people living with AIDS. Attitudes and behavior could be changed either directly or indirectly. A message-based persuasion should be used in order for attitude to be changed directly. Communication conveyed positive information about the people living with AIDS and the information created a positive attitude leading to better response from them. A perception that people living with AIDS were immoral as thought by the people who were HIV negative was another source of stigma (DiClemente & Salazar, 2013). To reduce stigma, the understanding of the uninfected that AIDS is a disease that could infected anybody should be challenged. Public information campaign should, therefore, address the risk behaviors without attributing the behaviors to anybody. However, the attitudes, stigma and discrimination towards people living with AIDS could be difficult to change; hence, elaborated information was needed to aim at threats that the people free from HIV felt towards the infected explicitly. In order to change the perception indirectly, a behaviorally-based persuasion could be used. Subsequently, a powerful organization to legislate and campaign for changes could efficiently implement behavioral change.

Target Audience

The target group should be young people and women, because they are most vulnerable. Although AIDS could affect anyone, women had no power to insist on safe sex, and HIV/AIDS was easily transmitted by the HIV-positive partners (Goldman, Hatch, 2000). The rate of infection was rapidly increasing and more people were getting infected and dead from AIDS. Other target groups should be drug users, who use needles, men, who were HIV positive, sex workers, migrant and transport workers, and sexually active youth. HIV/AIDS spread among the people, who lived in poverty and lacked access to education, nutrition, clean water, and basic health services. Most people, who died, were between the ages of twenty to forty-five and were parents or workers. As a result, it led to serious consequences for the growth and economy of the country. Although AIDS had become very common, people still die in silence. They were ashamed to speak about being infected.

Effective Methods Used in HIV Campaign

A model of health was created in order to examine people reaction when screened in the 1950s. It was as result of the scientist research to elaborate the opposition of people to take part in program that reduce the spread of the disease. They believed in taking preventive actions that were appropriate in reducing the risks of spreading HIV/AIDS, such as condoms, which help to reduce HIV infection. Moreover, its perceived advantages would be sufficient to overcome the barriers that included the cost and convenience of undertaking the actions (Brown, Macintyre & Trujillo, 2003). People used the models to solve problems, which helped them to successfully gain confidence and intelligence. The effectiveness of integrity in self-efficiency relied on players’ trust on the skills they performed.

HIV/AIDS campaigns uses television programs educate people on the ways to handle hard situations they encounter during sexual practices. Modeling and self-efficiency were utilized in HIV/AIDS campaigns, because of the holistic methods that offered skills, knowledge, and confidence to perform preventive measures using the models (Hastings & Publications, 2011). The following guide played an important part in behavior change for HIV/AIDS prevention:

• Knowledge: ability to recall the messages and understand the problem of HIV/AIDS.
• Approval: to respond to the issues and campaign information regarding spread of the disease or effects of  personal networks; to organize campaign contents  based on public opinion, for instance, family, spouse, friends, and co-workers.
• Aims: appreciate the outcome or importance of the HIV/AIDS campaign to learn the methods and plan to consult with the desire to practice despite inconvenience or amount.
• Practice: provider of information should be appreciated, and selection of the procedure to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS should be performed.
• Advocacy: practices and support programs should be established in the country, which would advocate practices to the people on the basis of personal experience. Moreover, treatment and understanding of the factors was important in designing the campaign awareness for the eradication of HIV/AIDS.

Measure of Attitude Change

The campaign outcome evaluation played an important role in controlling persuasion level and penetration of the information. The stage availed the level of success of the campaign along with many disadvantages in program implementation process and in the message design. Maio and Olson (2000) presented the following criteria to analyze the outcome of the communication campaign against HIV/AIDS:

• Program Goals and Objectives: it examined whether the program has attained the goals or not.
• Exposure Level of the message: size of the group exposed to the information  was examined and determined depending on the number of participants in the workshop, seminars attendance, public engagement in knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and quantity of newspapers that are bought, magazines and radio in the area of study.
• Reception Level: analyses of the population through investigation could be done, to understand the real message. HIV/AIDS information was then collected using public surveys.
• Coverage of the media level: accessed on the space allocation and basis of time. In print media, advertisements’ frequencies, page display and size are also considered.
• Retention Level: the HIV /AIDS retention level of people exposed is examined through socio-cultural affinity and the popularity of the message of the slogan.
• Change in the attitude level: It had to be found out how many people modified their attitude and took HIV/AIDS prevention measures.

Function Approach

The theory of attitude function was popular in some decades ago and lasted for less than ten years. The accurate measurement methods were developed due to consideration of importance of contexts in various ideas (Dyk, 2005). Perspectives functions studied various social issues. For example, one examined the attitudes on homosexuals in the military towards the lifting of the ban, and found that some people felt that the ban should be supported, others felt there were no reasons for having the ban and supported its eradication. The influential psychological view of the function served as an attitude, i.e. it examined the perspective approach on the risk of people concerned and expressed views based on assurance need to express self-concept, individual values and evaluate the results of research for HIV/AIDS education (Vandenhole, 2005).

A theory of stigma was fruitfully extended and adapted by psychologists, who were interested in the way individuals made categories and linked the categories to views that were stereotyped. The body of work highlighted the approach of individuals towards HIV/AIDS, the origins of stigma and discrimination in social cognition, and the effects of the different approach towards social interactions (Wright, Sparks, Hair, 2008). When applied to HIV/AIDS, the socio-cognitive framework constrained the plan of HIV/AIDS stigma to evaluation of the way people living with AIDS are stereotyped and stigmatized by the public, based on their incorrect focus on the particular cognition, emotions, beliefs, and perspective of the people living with AIDS. The scope of discrimination reduction interventions to the approaches that might add the empathy towards, as well as decrease the fear and anxiety, of people living with AIDS among the general group, or individually-based interventions to help people living with AIDS to cope with the experienced or perceived stigma (Libman, Makadon, 2003). The majority of books on HIV/AIDS identified stigma evaluation and reduction interventions. In the study, the author either explicitly or implicitly uses a socio-cognitive stigma conception. The methods exclude a detailed analysis of structural stigma aspects and the dynamic economic, social, and political processes that create and increase stigma and discrimination simultaneously.

Attitude Formation and Maintenance

In order to effect long lasting and impactful perspective change, the practitioners should try to intensify the elaboration of the information to the recipients. The extent, at which people outline the ideas in the report to their prior knowledge and beliefs, should be controlled. A common worry noted by the researchers in the part of HIV/AIDS communication is that the recipients of the report lack motivation to process the materials they receive successfully (Edgar, Noar & Freimuth, 2008). Moreover, it can lead to some scholars forwarding the suggestion that HIV/AIDS messages developers should put the spirit towards injecting peripheral meaning into the communications. Although this could have good short term results, long-lasting perspective changes are not likely to occur from the approach. Instead, methods that improve the formation of well-integrated, highly elaborated, accessible, and confidently held view will most likely result in estimated and sustained change in behavior. The means of inducing elaboration is by improving the perceived personal importance of the communication (Edgar, Noar & Freimuth, 2008). There are different kinds of message matching or tailoring that could be effective even to those, who are used to engaging in low-effort cognitive approaches (Maio & Olson, 2000). Making people feel personally responsible or accountable for their own health issues could likewise raise attention to HIV/AIDS-related communications (Brown, Macintyre & Trujillo, 2003). Additionally, if people think that their current health practices or beliefs place them in the minority, they may expand more on the reports to resolve the worries that can come up from being different from others (DiClemente & Salazar, 2013). Other changes impacting reports elaboration have been examined extensively elsewhere (for example, Edgar, Noar & Freimuth, 2008) and could prove important in HIV/AIDS communication campaign.

Implication of Social Change

Social change communication addressed social aspect of HIV/AIDS, as it was recognized as a promising approach. It engaged in diverse and multiple stalk holders and recognitive initiative that social life was inherently complex (Obregon, 2012). Social change communication for HIV/AIDS was defined as the approach that used advocacy social mobilization and communication in order to facilitate and accelerate change systematically in the underlying HIV-prone areas. It enabled the countries to tackle structural barriers to AIDS, such as violation of human rights responses in an effective manner (Sempruch & Gallagher, 2004). Moreover, it was embedded in wider social processes that were known as umbrella, since they referred to the processes, programs, and initiatives that differed in audience, objectives, and programmed components.

Implementation, design, and control of the programs were calculated to influence the acceptance of social ideas and involved planning, considerations of product, distribution, pricing, and communication (Wright, Sparks & Hair, 2008). Market research and social marketing theory highlighted that the following should be done:

• inducing audience knowledge with regard to HIV/AIDS campaign topics;
• targeting information at particular audience or the target group;
• reinforcing HIV/AIDS-related information;
• cultivating positive attitudes and images of people living with AIDS;
• motivating interests;
• inducing desired resolution or positioning;
• activating audience segments through effective communication in HIV/AIDS campaigns, as it could  play an important part in preventing and eradicating HIV/AIDS

Eradication could be achieved by:

1. Providing a forum of communication and discussions with people living with AIDS;
2. Providing support towards the right change of behavior;
3. Creating awareness and mobilizing resources to the prone group;
4. Establishing news program that educate people on HIV/AIDS;
5. Creating opinion guidance to aid in eradication of HIV/AIDS through campaigns;
6. Resources sharing with NGOs, and media as partners in capacity building.

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