Interactive documentaries and health: combating HIV-related stigma and cultural trauma

Abstract

Interactive documentaries have been growing in number and importance on the international scene in numerous fields and markets. Interactive documentaries entered the field of health about a decade ago, and since then they have proven to be a worthwhile tool for exploring various health issues, such as living with HIV. More recently, experts and academics have started to explore interactive documentaries dealing with a newly emerging topic: stigma. Stigma can be defined as the establishment of a 'mark' or characteristic identified as deviant and rejected by society. Stigma has negative consequences in every aspect of a person's life. When it comes to health, people with stigmatised conditions have the worst outcomes, a problem ultimately related to their own power and agency. There are many sources of stigma, but the structural sources are the least studied and have the biggest impact on health. The media and culture are two of these structural sources of stigmatization, and cultural trauma has been suggested as one of its mediators. This study seeks to examine interactive documentaries as a tool for raising awareness of the impact of HIV-related stigma and cultural trauma. To this end, it analyses two interactive documentaries, Vertical/Horizontal and The Graying of AIDS, focusing on the device, narrative, and textual elements used by these documentaries to deal with the impact of stigma in health, and elaborating on how these filmic pieces represent people living with stigma and whether that representation challenges or reinforces stigmatization.