[Mass media involvement in education and information about HIV/AIDS].

AIDS is the first international mass media disease. Throughout the world, most people have learned more about AIDS from radio, television and the press than from personal contacts with health professionals. Mass media AIDS materials influence behavior most when they are designed and developed for different segments of the audience, with the specific needs and concerns of those segments in mind. In the past mass media evoked fear, anxiety and other negative emotional responses to AIDS and didn't proposed practical and realistic ways of action. The journalists made frequently distinctions between innocent victims of HIV, that are infants and recipients of infected blood or blood products through health care, and other "guilty" infected people such as gays, sex workers or african people. Mass media can change behavior and if journalists accept their responsibility in presenting the news, the publicity about AIDS may have a great and positive impact in HIV/AIDS.