AIDS has placed the issue of disease as catac1ysm back on the social scneario, where the biological, political, and social dimensions are inextricably interwoven. This article is an effort to outline the construction of the representation of this phenomenon, previously unknown in the Western tradition. Through it, one can observe multiple interferences and retranslations between scientific and common knowledge . With this in mind, AIDS is analyzed as approached within a public space, that is, through a critical reading of French newspapers.
AIDS; public space; social representation