AIDS streetscapes: A social iconography of HIV/AIDS campaigns in Accra, Ghana

Why do well-funded, well-researched, international AIDS media campaigns fail to engender changes in sexual behavior? In an effort to persuade people to protect themselves from HIV infection, AIDS organizations produce media campaigns for circulation through urban space. Often these campaigns fail to resonate or change behavior. To understand how communication is disrupted I create a social iconography of AIDS campaigns: a study of the social practices, interactions, and contexts around representations of AIDS in Accra. By adopting a mixed-method approach (which includes ethnography, interviews, focus groups, photographic documentation, and content analysis), this research improves on single campaign, "small-n," pretest/post-test evaluations that characterize health communication research. This cultural comparative approach attends to meaning at every stage of communication, from production to circulation and reception, articulating new mechanisms that explain the cultural power of AIDS campaigns. I find that producers' commitment to formative research and following global "best practices" of design constrains the kinds of objects they produce. Additionally, despite pretesting campaign materials with their target audience, the materiality of objects and cultural practices of local audiences disrupt the effective communication of AIDS knowledge.