Determining how Legislators and Media Sources portray Health Issues

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between law and the media by looking at two important and politicized health issues, abortion and HIV/AIDS, in New York and Tennessee. In order to achieve this goal, legislative discussion and media articles were dissected using MAXQDA and results were analyzed using Excel. Results demonstrated that abortion and HIV/AIDS differ in how they are portrayed in state legislatures and media sources. My findings show that abortion is a highly opinionated topic that struggles with scientific legitimacy due to the political domination of abortion frames while HIV is considered more of a scientific issue but struggles with stigma. The results also show that, based on the topic, media sources vary in the extent to which they follow the frames and biases perpetuated by partisan politics. Overall, this thesis sheds light on the relationship between legislators and media journalists and between abortion and HIV/AIDS.