Edward M Kian
Oklahoma State University, USA
Title: The world has changed in 25 years: Re-examining media framing of Magic Johnson living with HIV-AIDS
Biography
Biography: Edward M Kian
Abstract
In 1991, U.S. sports media were shocked when Ervin “Magic” Johnson, a five-time champion for the Los Angeles Lakers and arguably then the world’s most famous basketball player, announced he had contracted the HIV-AIDS virus before immediately retiring as a player from the National Basketball Association. During that period AIDS was largely viewed as a death sentence that most Americans wrongly believed affected only gay men. Johnson’s historic announcement began to change that attitude. In a landmark study on media framing of homosexuality in sport, a textual analysis of national newspaper coverage of HIV-infected athletes Johnson, diver Greg Louganis and boxer Tommy Morrison found that most of the articles on Johnson and Morrison expressed shock that both athletes had contracted the HIV virus, while also noting multiple times that each athlete had proclaimed they were heterosexual. However, no article in any of the examined newspapers on the openly gay and more effeminate Louganis noted how he had contracted a virus that at that time was associated predominately with gay men. Johnson, however, has not only survived with HIV but returned to play and later coach in the NBA, co-captained the U.S. Olympic “Dream Team” in 1992, has constantly remained in great shape and is a highly successful businessmen and television commentator. He is one of the prime reasons public attitudes have changed toward far greater acceptance of those infected with HIV. This research used a textual analysis to examine media framing of Johnson and HIV this decade. A Lexus-Nexus academic search was used to locate all articles published in major U.S. newspapers from January 1, 2010 through August 15, 2016 that mentioned Johnson and HIV and/or AIDS in the same article. All articles were read and coded by two researchers to search for dominate themes, using the overarching frameworks of Connell’s (1995) Hegemonic Masculinity and Anderson’s (2009) Inclusive Masculinity to interpret results.