Helen Kennedy: Generic visuals of Covid-19 in the news

The Centre for Science, Health, and Data Communications Research focuses on the urgent need for better science, health and data communication through ambitious cross-disciplinary collaborations. From reporting statistics, to tackling disinformation, from health and wellness interventions to more efficient communication around environmental and humanitarian disasters, our members respond to real world issues—often in real time.

BU Centre for Science, Health & Data Comm Research

Research talk from  Professor Helen Kennedy: Generic visuals of Covid-19 in the news: invoking banal belonging through symbolic reiteration

Abstract: In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, images of the virus molecule and ‘flatten the curve’ line charts were inescapable. There is now a vast visual repertoire of vaccines, people wearing face masks in everyday settings, choropleth maps and both bar and line charts. These ‘generic visuals’ circulate widely in the news media and, however unremarkable, play an important role in representing the pandemic crisis in particular ways. Advancing Michael Billig’s concept of ‘banal nationalism’, we argue that these generic visuals promote banal visions and versions of nationalism, localism and cosmopolitanism in the face of the crisis, and that they do so through the symbolic reiteration of a range of visual resources and overarching themes across news stories and news media outlets. Through an analysis of three major news outlets in the UK, we explore the broader work that generic visuals do and the concept of visual genericity itself.  Bio: <a href="https://genericvisuals.leeds.ac.uk/team-members/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://genericvisuals.leeds.ac.uk/team-members/</a>

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Helen Kennedy: Generic visuals of Covid-19 in the news

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Helen Kennedy: Generic visuals of Covid-19 in the news

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