Factors Influencing The Identity Of People Live With HIV In The Internet Age

Since the emergence of AIDS,the fight against HIV has never stopped.As of October 2021,there were 1.14 million people living with HIV(PLWH)in China,the overall low epidemic level,which means AIDS has become a preventable and controllable disease.Yet the stigma and stigma of AIDS persist,fear and exclusion persist,and the burden of living with AIDS is far greater than the disease itself.In the era of media,media has changed our daily life.If the early AIDS patients are isolated from each other and fight on their own,they need to bear the discrimination from geographical relations.Therefore,infected people are more likely to use the Internet to connect with each other,stay together and face social doubts.Communication decentralization provides a channel for the infected to make their voices heard,correct their names and help each other,and also breeds a large number of online rumors and online violence.Data sharing provides the infected with experience and knowledge to cope with the disease,but also makes it more difficult for them to manage their privacy and hide their identity.As a result,the self-cognition and self-evaluation of infected people become more complicated.This paper adopts qualitative research method and network resources to conduct in-depth interviews with 22 HIV-infected people through Weibo and Wechat.NVivo12 software is used to sort out the interview data and grounded theory is used to conduct three-level coding to construct the "identity" model.Based on the theoretical background of interdisciplinary(communication,sociology,psychology),this paper explores the identity path and influencing factors of HIV-infected persons.The study found that with the popularity of social media,the influencing factors of HIV-infected persons’ identity construction involved three dimensions: one is personal factors,including personal experience,infection duration,health status,knowledge reserve and economic conditions.The second is social support,including family support,friends support and patients support.The third is environmental factors,including cultural tradition,social stigma and social resources.Under the joint action of the above factors,three different identity results were formed: the patient’s identity highlighting,the coexistence of multiple identities and the shift of identity focus.Affected by stigma,the social situation of infected persons is still not optimistic,and many of them have serious psychological problems and are difficult to return to normal life.It is suggested to help infected persons reconcile with themselves and construct positive identity from three aspects of social support,policy support and media environment,which can be further explored in subsequent studies.