MASK

Task: Making a Mask focused on the CI Theme of the semester

Course Code and Name: MSJ11211 Mass Communication

Project Name: ‘Stigmatization Kills Faster than HIV Aids’

Project Date: Fall 2020

Project Type: Group

Project Completed on Semester No: 3

CI Theme of the Term: Motivated Reasoning

Project Description:

In Fall 2020, as part of the Mass Communication course (MSJ11211), our group project focused on the Curriculum Integration (CI) theme of Motivated Reasoning. Our project, “Stigmatization Kills Faster than HIV AIDS,” aimed to illustrate how cognitive biases and societal prejudices contribute to the stigmatization of HIV patients. We created a mask representing the dual suffering of HIV patients: the physical pain from the disease and the psychological torment from societal stigma. The mask had two sides: black for the sorrow and pain of being infected, and white for the grief and suffering caused by discrimination. We also included factual information about HIV transmission to dispel myths and challenge misconceptions. By integrating Face Negotiation Theory, we highlighted how cultural differences and biases exacerbate the plight of HIV patients, aiming to raise awareness and promote empathy, understanding, and support.

Project Justification:

The “Stigmatization Kills Faster than HIV AIDS” project addressed the severe impacts of HIV-related stigma and discrimination on patients’ mental and emotional well-being. By incorporating Face Negotiation Theory, we highlighted how cultural biases contribute to stigmatization. The project aligned with the CI theme of Motivated Reasoning, showing how biased thinking perpetuates stigma and discrimination. Through our mask, we visually represented the dual suffering of HIV patients and aimed to challenge misconceptions about HIV transmission. Our goal was to foster a more compassionate and informed society, ultimately improving the quality of life for HIV patients by addressing the psychological and social aspects of stigmatization.

DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA STUDIES AND JOURNALISM

 

Course Title: Mass Communication

Course Code: MSJ11211

Term: Fall 2020

Section: 02

 

Report on Curriculum Integration (Fall 2020) Project 

Topic Title: Stigmatization Kills Faster than HIV Aids

 

Submitted To

Mahmudun Nabi

Senior Lecturer

School of Social Science (SSS)

Department of Media Studies and Journalism

University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)

 

Submitted By

(Group – 18)

Zakia Sultana Sanam (201012045)

Yasir Mahtab Pinak (201012049)

 

Date of Submission: 15 January 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SL.	Topics	Page
1.	Face-negotiation theory	2
2.	Curriculum Integration (CI) theme of our Mask	2
3.	Our message	3
4.	Layout	4
5.	Painting and Installation	4
6.	Realization	5
7.	Role of individual members	5
8.	Photographs	6
9.	Conclusion	6
10.	Acknowledgement	7

STIGMATIZATION KILLS FASTER THAN HIV AIDS

 

1. Face-negotiation theory:

Relationships are the foundation of any person’s life since people are social beings. But in a partnership, disagreements are inevitable. The theory of face negotiation discusses how people’s cultural differences affect conflict management. Stella Ting-Toomey, professor of human communication at California State University, proposed the idea. She clarified that the disparity in conflict management can be a part of the maintenance of a ‘face’ in society.

Face Negotiation Theory aims to explain and understand the dynamics of intercultural communication. The theory puts a particular focus on the various perspectives of members of the collectivist and individualistic cultures. Individualist and collectivist people use different approaches to save disputes and settle conflicts. They have many concepts of what constitutes saving face. Unfortunately, to members of one culture, what seems right can seem highly offensive to members of another. Face Negotiation Theory, if fully understood and properly applied, can help individuals from different cultures avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and reach mutually beneficial agreements.

In mass communication, the mask-making project includes the Face Negotiation Theory: turning a face into a message. The message we depicted through our mask falls under the principle of individualistic face negotiation, which, in the case of our project, is HIV Stigma. Through the mask, we tried to depict an HIV patient who suffers from HIV stigma, because of the biased information (stereotypical perceptions and beliefs about people with HIV) carried by some individualism. It is the bias that comes with marking an individual as part of a community that is considered socially unacceptable. We have also tried to present factual HIV transmission evidence that demonstrates how false information can psychologically kill an HIV patient slowly.

As we used one face to represent two separate states of an HIV patient, this allowed us to focus on ourselves better. We had to put ourselves in HIV patients’ shoes to understand their suffering and portray them to do justice accordingly. In order to perceive their sufferings, we had to not only dig deeper into them, but also to realize the implications of our kindness and understanding of them. We became more realistic by the mask-making project. While doing our research, so many superstitions happening around us have been discovered. We can now compare the right and wrongs between information bias and facts. We have been able to explore our inner selves through this project.

2. Curriculum Integration (CI) theme:

Mask is a universal symbolic object that can reflect many different metaphors to understand a situation, meaning, danger, hypocrisy, hideous anonymity.  It can manifest powerful effects on the viewers’ mind even for many positive streams of events, behavior, or items.

The Media Studies and Journalism Department of ULAB organizes Curriculum Integration (CI) every semester, focusing on a specific topic that allows students to understand and demonstrate their creative ideas outside of the curriculum. This semester of Fall 2020, the CI theme is Motivated Reasoning. Motivated reasoning is a type of reasoning in which individuals join, construct, and evaluate reasons for drawing or endorsing the desired conclusion in a biased way. The word ‘motivated’ refers to the idea that people use reasoning methods in motivated reasoning to help them build on the conclusions they want or are motivated to derive. To validate their desired conclusions, individuals are not inherently motivated, of course. In fact, they are often motivated to draw definitive conclusions. However, the term motivated reasoning refers to situations in which people wish to validate their desired hypothesis rather than circumstances in which a motive for precision affects the reasoning of individuals.

The CI theme of our Mask is Motivational reasoning on HIV Stigma. Our main theme of the mask is to rationally explain the failure of the human face. What we see is basically the taboo of punishing (blaming) people for something they may or may not be responsible for even in the case of being HIV positive.

This theme is relevant to our personal/social life because stigma is a negative social construct. Stigma has negative impacts on health outcomes for people living with HIV, including non-optimal adherence to treatment, poorer adherence to visits, greater depression and lower overall quality of life.

3. Our message:

“HIV is sufficiently painful in its battle alone, but the pressure becomes too tough along with discrimination. The real problem therefore lies in the prejudice of individualism. Do not give up and avoid the HIV stigma. End the war of status, condemn discrimination, and create a healthy society because stigmatization kills faster than HIV Aids”.

In our context of stigmatization for having been infected by HIV and suffering from AIDS, the mask can be animated and articulated by investigating mass social psychology which taboos the AIDS patients ranging from stigmatization to alienation from the mainstream social strata.

Stigmatization stems from misconceptions that have long been held in society by traditions and other long-standing ideas of orthodoxy. Failing to accept a new situation, AIDS is a taboo that collectively drives HIV carriers away as alienated, leading them to marginalized communities, eventually transforming them into an outlaw. Sooner, losing hope is much faster than dying before physical death. But we now know very well that the incorporation and assimilation of HIV-infected communities is a matter of scientific principles appropriating humanistic issues related to contagious diseases. 

The usual concepts of spreading AIDS by mixing with HIV-infected people have allowed the stigmatization process to flourish without any rationality. But what we should have done so far is to treat them with equal fraternity and sensitivity, so that they could have been much better psychologically in the fight against their physiological handicaps since AIDS cannot be transferred from one to the other. Common flu, coughing, fever, eating together, social mixing, using utensils or cutlery, or even clothing, cannot infect the disease.

We chose this message because the wrong marginalization for convicting them of a great sin or crime for being infected with HIV is a nihilism so profound that for those who operate on conscience, mass therapy for this illusion to wash away now has become a societal duty.

4. Layout:

In our project of the mask, we try to establish two sides of human conditions. One may be sad, and the other may be enlightened, but one is affected by the other in so many odd ways that it is more often than not that it is impossible to find how a human being must behave predictably enough without a lot of skepticism that results in masked faces of social relationships when everyone is a hidden protagonist of a tragedy that others are intimidated states to accept any soul. Without any prior doubt, it leads to an anarchic social system with a space of antagonistic human souls living in chaos and sheer mistrust together.

We tried to express an HIV infected patient through the mask, whose black side refers to the sorrow of being infected with HIV, on the other hand, white side refers to the grief induced by society’s stigma. The inscription on the mask’s forehead was used to signify the HIV patient’s stigma. To our boards and masks, we decided to add several artifacts that would provide precise information on the disease’s transmission. For my mask, I specifically used white and black. White and black both illustrate the two conditions of the patient. One is the agony of being infected, and the other is society’s superstition. Without society’s biases, he would have been happier. So I kept the part in white. Yet the patient has to suffer because of the superstitions of society. In our project, we wanted to provide some context in which precise and biased details can be highlighted. Since HIV patients are being looked down upon in society. While HIV is not a contagious disease, people still believe it is. There are many myths about HIV in people’s minds that need to be corrected. And that’s why there was something we planned on doing with HIV. Our mask is the product of that plan. 

5. Painting and Installation:

On both the board and the mask, the base color is painted half black and half white. The mask is painted black on the white portion of the board, and the mask is painted white on the black portion of the board. We used black to paint the eyebrows, eyes, teardrops, and lips for the white part of the mask, and vice versa for the black part of the mask. We used a red color to write AIDS above the eyebrows, in the top part of the mask. We used a white-colored border on the black side of the board and vice versa. Painted under the mask are two red hearts. For the entire project, we used acrylic paint. We used some printed images on the board, some of which meant exact HIV transmission detail, and some meant misinformation. On the board, we used two printed messages, one of which was placed on the large red HIV symbol and one of which was  placed under the symbol. We used a syringe, a blade, a razor, and a blood bag on the white side of the board, referring to those factors from which HIV can be transmitted. A condom, which is a way to avoid HIV transmission, is put over the red hearts drawn under the mask. We placed another AIDS sign on the white side of the board, using another red ribbon. Our concept was pre-planned entirely. We put it on paper first, so we didn’t have to improvise later on. We encountered a problem while painting the mask, which was the constant blackening of the white sides. So the white side had to be repainted each time. With our final outcome, we’re very satisfied. Since we have been able to work in line with our strategy.

6. Realization:

At the end of the project, we realized that our project had been successful. Because of the amount of effort we put in, the results were as anticipated. If we get a chance to do this project again later, we will try to show it better. We will work with greater planning. The main purpose of our project was to make people aware of society’s biases and to eradicate them. The chance to take care of people has boosted our morale. Through this work, we have attempted to give society the right message. It has boosted our strength. We tried our best to convey the message to the greatest extent possible. We think that in this project, there was only one error. That is – the project of everybody was very simple. We scribble a lot, however. If we get another opportunity later, we’ll try to make this project simpler. We tried to eliminate human misconceptions through this project and tried to highlight the correct information.

7. Role of individual members:

Teammates need to contribute their best to a successful project when conducting every mission. As the mask making session was massive, alongside the report making, we had to undergo a lot of procedures. Zakia Sultana Sanam, is the main head of this project, since she picked the theme, brainstormed the key ideas, and focused on the subject that how we need to represent it. She also bought the requisite items we needed for mask making and searched for suitable images, installed props, and did the face painting. On the other hand, Yasir Mahtab Pinak volunteered as the face of the mask. He also researched the topic we should write in our report. The report for the mask was written, consecutively, by both of us.

We both have a substantial contribution to this mask. We worked very earnestly and enthralled to show a beautiful mask with a voice that not only needs calling the standards of society but also enables the victims to be heard and respected. We also discussed and integrated our ideas into the mask. Thus, in pieces, each of us has made individual efforts and joined them for this beautiful piece to come together.

8. Photographs:

9. Conclusion:

Our view of stigmatization for being infected by HIV and running a smoother existence in a society is exceedingly difficult. The unfounded tabooing of hateful mindsets and the lack of forbearance amongst cultures are genuinely still unacceptable.

We look forward to a free-thinking future and a broader sense of honor for others. But no one should ever be stigmatized in a bottleneck of the health paradigm. All critical medical conditions must be accepted in a common context of empathy, compassion, and openness so that all masks and hypocrisies are rooted out to reassure a futuristic society.

10. Acknowledgement:

We gratefully acknowledge our respected faculty Mahmudun Nabi sir, who encouraged us to go with our chosen topic and created the opportunity for us to do this project. Without his support, guidance, and encouragement, the purpose of this project might not be accomplished.

Learnings and Outcomes (Self-reflection):

• Learned the process of mask-making.
• Developed skills in visualizing ideas through different art forms.
• Enhanced painting skills through practical application.
• Improved communication skills by conveying messages through symbols and art.
• Developed teamwork abilities through collaboration on a group project.
• Gained insights into the power of artistic expression to communicate complex social issues.
• Recognized the transformative potential of creative projects in fostering empathy and understanding.
• Appreciated the importance of mentorship and guidance in project success.
• Enhanced understanding of nonviolent communication through the creative process.
• Explored personal strengths and areas for improvement in artistic endeavors.