Reviewer Comment

Response

While I applaud the clarity of the introduction, it needs to be more developed as a literature review. We jump to understanding the TIDE method, but we have no context or grounding in multi-media and HIV now. To better contextualize your impact and results, it may be advantageous to indicate and outline the intersection of HIV and multimedia research.

Thank you for your comment. We revised the intro to include the literature outlining the intersection of multimedia methods and HIV.

Likewise, around line 75, you present a RQ that mentions “structural challenges attributed to social and societal factors” but the literature review did not disclose or document these structural challenges and/or societal factors. I would go back to the lit review and specifically add a subsection addressing this. The digital divide and technological access seems essential to the study, but it is absent from the lit review.

 A subsection on the digital divide has been added to elaborate on these social and societal challenges.

Similar to above, you repeatedly mention a “film-based intervention,” but a film-based intervention about what? Stigma? Education? Treatment? PrEP?

Methods: (-) Your questions concern their experience watching the video, but your RQ concerns how you can mitigate structural barriers. Please explain how/why these questions connect to RQ; I think the goal was to use these questions to quantify if/how barriers exist, but you have to make that clear for us.

This has been resolved in tracked changes.

Thank you. The ways in which these questions connect to the RQ have been clarified.

I would also strongly recommend looking into Dutta’s Culture Centred Approach (CCA) because he would call what you’re doing creating “infrastructures of listening.” This would also give you a theoretical framing that helps justify this approach and study. Some may be vehemently opposed to the manuscript not mentioning a theory or approach at all.

Thank you for this suggestion. We added Dutta’s Culture Centered Approach in tracked changes.

The manuscript mentions the issue of participants’ web-cameras being off but could benefit from further contextualization of why this was significant. Adding a brief discussion on the implications of this for participant engagement, data quality, or ethical considerations would strengthen this point.

 The wording of this sentence was amended to clarify that participants were provided with the opportunity to turn their cameras off to maintain their privacy amongst other participants

There is a repeated line between lines 96-97, which was previously stated in lines 91-92. This redundancy should be removed for a smoother reading experience.

Thank you for pointing this out. We removed the repeated lines.

Ensure that the results presented directly correspond to the research questions or objectives outlined earlier in the manuscript. This will strengthen the manuscript's overall coherence and ensure that the findings are clearly linked to the study's aims.

The Conclusion/Discussion section has been revised to better map onto the research objectives outlined in the introduction.