Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Gazette
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Rogers, E. M.
Right arrow Articles by Thombre, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Indian Audience Interpretations of Health-Related Content in the Bold and the Beautiful

Everett M. Rogers

Department of Communication and Journalism, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, erogers{at}unm.edu

Arvind Singhal

School for Communication Studies, Ohio University, Athens, OH, singhal{at}ohio.edu

Avinash Thombre

University of New Mexico, and Department of Speech Communication, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, avinash4{at}unm.edu

This article explores the meanings given by Indian viewers to a series of health-related episodes dealing with ‘Tony’s HIV’ in the Hollywood television soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. Forty-two respondents in six focus group interviews and in 17 in-depth personal interviews were asked for their interpretations of this television health content. Indian respondents interpreted the sexual explicitness and the assertiveness of female characters as characteristic of the US, but not as a part of Indian reality. The sexual openness in The Bold and the Beautiful ‘shocked’ Indian viewers, and led some to watch the episodes only in private. Indian respondents generally had positive reactions to the ‘Tony’s HIV’ episodes, although they felt that self-disclosure of HIV/AIDS status could not happen in India, where HIV/AIDS is highly stigmatized. In general, Indian respondents felt that ‘Tony’s HIV’ showed an ideal situation regarding HIV/AIDS, but one that was far removed from Indian reality.

Key Words: audience • health messages • India • television • The Bold and the Beautiful

Gazette, Vol. 66, No. 5, 437-458 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0016549204045921
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 GazetteHome page
K. S. Chitnis, A. Thombre, E. M. Rogers, A. Singhal, and A. Sengupta
(Dis)similar Readings: Indian and American Audiences' Interpretation of Friends
International Communication Gazette, April 1, 2006; 68(2): 131 - 145.
[Abstract] [PDF]