World Aids Day and the Media

Over one million Americans in the US live with HIV and a large majority of these citizens range in the Generation Y and X age group. In 2008, worldwide an estimated 33 million people were living with either HIV or Aids. So when I saw that such Internet social sites such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter were uniting to spread awareness on Aids, it caught my eye.

Today is Word Aids Day (December 1) a day that is meant to teach awareness on the disease, how it is transmitted, and how it is treated. These sites are using their prominent status on the web to promote education and raise money for Aids. YouTube partnered with Alicia Key’s foundation, Keep a Child Alive, by streaming her concert live tonight. They only ask for donations of five dollars that will go toward medications and research of HIV/Aids. Twitter asked that users tweet with certain hash tags and words that will turn their posts red and thus help raise awareness. And even a small amount of money will be donated towards the fund for each tweet. Facebook, Google, and Flickr used similar techniques to raise money and promote the importance of the day.

Media professionals of the present and in the future should take notice of this article because of the representation of the newest trends in Internet usage. More and more often organizations are turning to the Internet to promote their events or products. And why wouldn’t they, the Internet is relatively free and is capable of getting a message out to millions worldwide in a short amount of time. The National Aids Trust (NAT) was able to better promote this prominent day in Aids education and research by turning to these social networking sites and search engines to promote their cause.

This article also affects Generation Y in several ways. One, Aids affects Gen Y more than ever because they are living with the disease but are also expected to manage and possibly cure the infection. From a media stand point, this article also appeals to Gen Y because of the Internet usage. Gen Y is pushing the limits of the Internet – from entrepreneurial efforts of creating new online companies to the straight consumerism of social networking site, search engines, online catalogs, and the list goes on. NAT realized this movement to the Internet and in order to target Gen Y, they went straight to the Internet to publicize their World Aids Day. 

This growing trend of using the web to promote products and events instead of traditional media outlets is changing the media landscape. Ten years ago NAT would have used magazines, television, and even radio to promote their upcoming event but now in a new generation of quicker and easier, the Internet was their most important asset when promoting. The Internet is creating a new media landscape that takes magazines, television, and radio and puts them all in one place for everyone to easily have access to. Though this article is about raising Aids awareness, it is also showing us what the magnitude these newest media outlets have on our world.

Advertisement