The other day I was watching Law and Order with my boyfriend. A quick synopsis of the plot goes as follows: A court case hearing about a young, HIV-infected, man who is on trial for multiple accounts of attempted murder due to his sexual encounters with women. When one of the victims is on the stand one of the attorneys cross-examines her suggesting she knew of the dangers of unprotected sex. This attorney used advertisements that were placed in the victims surrounds, such as bus stops, bus, billboards around her apartment, etc. I found it interesting that this attorney used these advertisements as evidence, which implies that it is expected of everyday citizens to absorb the information the media sends us.
Campaigns against sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV are generally created for a younger audience because people in their teens and twenties are more likely to contract a disease, because they are not educated about STDs properly and maintain an invincible persona. Around the West Hollywood area, the ads depict men, because advertisers know that there are many gay men in that area. This goes back to the initial HIV stereotypes, which implied that only gay men get this disease, this is a notion that has been proven wrong since.
These campaign ads impact many people on a daily basis, and provide a reminder to keep safe, especially in this day and age. They continue to impact people of every age, sex, gender. Sometimes it just takes a visual message to change a persons life for good!
