Visual Risk Literacy in “Flatten the Curve” COVID-19 Visualizations (original) (raw)

Visualising Global Pandemic: A Content Analysis of Infographics on Covid – 19

Journal of Content, Community and Communication, 2020

Visuals and words always create a narrative impact on the minds of the readers. Visual data or infographics enable readers to understand and comprehend complex information effortlessly. In an era of technological development, consumption of information is faster and quicker, and so the storytelling potential of data visualisation narratives is productive. During a global endemic like coronavirus, the mounting fear motivates people to seek accurate and credible information swifter and also change health behaviour accordingly. This paper tries to explore the representation of visualisation of data during the outbreak of global pandemic – COVID-19 for three months – from 1 January to 21 March 2020 in two leading national newspapers – The Hindu and The Times of India. The study identified the percentage of coverage, different levels and types of infographics and message characteristics of infographics. The study found that response and self-efficacy related infographics were primarily l...

The efficacy of scientific diagrams during the COVID-19 pandemic. Processes of visual translations and dynamics of online diffusion

Visual Culture Studies, 2021

The outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020 led to an immediate and unprecedented media coverage of scientific and health issues. Experts and scientists were called upon to urgently communicate to citizens the extent of the danger and the measures required to contain it. They thus conceived and developed visual artifacts which could efficiently communicate scientific content to a wider public. This paper specifically examines the scientific chart that dominated the political and national health discourse particularly during the two weeks between March 8th and 21st 2020, and was linked to the slogan “Flatten the curve”. Long circulating in the narrow field of epidemiology, the diagram suddenly spread across the Internet and spilled over onto other media, subject to the progressive variations that made it less ambiguous and increasingly comprehensible to a wider audience. Its evolution, acceptance and circulation on the social networks offer an opportunity to observe how public opinion was formed around constellations of scientists working actively online. It furthermore makes it possible to observe the development of a language that oscillates dynamically between the verbal and the visual, building a common imagery that was used to support the rhetoric of political language. The scientific image is thus observed as effective, to the extent to which it prompts not only knowledge, but action as well, acquiring a performativity that projects it into a strategic-political dimension.

Visual Narratives of the Covid-19 pandemic

Journal of data science, statistics, and visualisation, 2022

COVID-19 has sparked a worldwide interest in understanding the dynamic evolution of a pandemic and tracking the effectiveness of preventive measures and rules. For this reason, numerous media and research groups have produced comprehensive data visualisations to illustrate the relevant trends and figures. In this paper, we will look at a selection of COVID 19 data visualisations to evaluate and discuss the currently established visualisation tools in terms of their ability to provide a communication channel both within the data science team and between data analysts, domain experts and a general interested audience. Although there is no set catalogue of evaluation criteria for data visualisations, we will try to give an overview of the different core aspects of visualisation evaluation and their competing principles.

Facts Upon Delivery: What Is Rhetorical About Visualized Models?

2021

What expectations should professionals and the public place on visuals to communicate the uncertainties of complex phenomena? This article demonstrates how charts during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic articulated visual arguments yet also required extended communicative support upon their delivery. The author examines one well-circulated chart comparing COVID-19 case trends per country and highlights its rhetoric by contrasting its design decisions with those of other charts and reports created as the pandemic initially unfolded. To help nonexpert audiences, the author suggests that professional communicators and designers incorporate more contextual information about the data and notable design choices.

Data visualization in the time of coronavirus

Strategic Design Research Journal, 2021

Currently, we observe a proliferation of data visualizations about Covid-19 in the media, which makes it a convenient time to study the topic from the perspective of different disciplines, including information design and mathematics. If, on the one hand, the abundance of such pandemic representations would already be a legitimate reason to address the issue, on the other hand, it is not the central motivation of the present discussion. The uniqueness of the epidemiological phenomenon that we are experiencing highlights new aspects regarding the production and use of data visualizations, one of which is its diversification beyond counting and visual representation of events related to the virus spread. In this sense, the article discusses, through the analysis of examples, three different approaches for this type of schematic representation, namely: visualization of hypothetical data, visualizations based on secondary data, and visualization for social criticism and self-reflection. Ultimately, we can argue that design contributes to the production of data visualizations that can help people to understand the causes and implications involved in the new coronavirus and encourage civic responsibility through self-care and the practice of social distancing.

Special Issue: Communicating Risk and Uncertainty in the Face of COVID-19

Science Communication, 2020

In this issue, we are proud to present four full Research Articles and three Research Notes (shorter papers on emerging results) that were submitted in response to our call for papers for this special issue on today's COVID-19 communication issues and challenges. The response to the call was overwhelming, keeping us very busy since July. We thank our hard-working reviewers for putting in extra time and effort to make this issue move ahead quickly. In this brief introduction, we offer short summaries and a few comments on these articles, as a guide for readers. We sincerely hope that, in addition to science communication scholars, other audiences (including public health professionals, media professionals, and others seeking "best practice" guidance) will be motivated to consult this research collection. As we all feel our way through what sometimes looms as enveloping blackness, the late Carl Sagan's metaphor of science as a candle in the dark has never seemed more apt (Sagan, 1995). We expect some of the articles that were not ready for publication at this time, as well as many of the new submissions on this topic that continue to arrive, will appear in the journal at a later time.

Charting cognition: Mapping public understanding of COVID-19

Public Understanding of Science, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic of the last 2 years (and counting) disrupted commerce, travel, workplaces, habits, and-of course-health, the world over. This study aimed to capture snapshots of the perceptions and misperceptions of COVID-19 among 27 participants from three US municipalities. These perspectives are analyzed through thematic analyses and concept maps. Such snapshots, particularly as viewed through the lens of narrative sense-making theory, capture a sample of cognitions at this unique moment in history: a little over 1 year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings suggest that the (mis)perceptions captured are predominantly conveyed via narratives of participants' personal experiences, and that the themes of attitudes toward precautionary measures, uncertainty, and the muddied science communication environment are prevalent. These themes suggest several salient targets for future research and current science communication, such as a focus on basic explainers, vaccinations' safety and effectiveness and the necessity of uncertainty in the practice of science.

Making sense of journalistic COVID-19 data visualizations: an in-depth study of two adults’ visual-numeric literacy

Adults Learning Mathematics,an International Journal, 2024

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic urged authorities to share quantitative information such as infection and death rates. One way of disseminating was through graphs, maps, and diagrams. Such data visualizations communicate numeric data in compact ways, but also require a particular mathematical literacy from readers. We conceptualized this particular mathematical literacy as visual-numeric literacy. To study it, we interviewed two young adults with higher education but low confidence in mathematics and asked them to make sense of COVID-19 data visualizations from journalistic digital media. An in-depth analysis of their visual-numeric literacy revealed that the two participants had developed various sense-making strategies. Their lived experience in the pandemic assisted them to overcome obstacles in mathematical sense-making, and gain insights from the data visualizations. We discuss out-of-school mathematics learning and provide recommendations for improving adults’ visual-numeric literacy.

Public Perception of Data Visuals in Media Coverage During COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risk Perception Model Revisited

Tripodos, 2020

The aim of this research is to examine the role that data visuals in media coverage play on the risk perception of the public in times of a pandemic. The article reports findings from an online survey of 191 adults regarding the trajectory of the risk perception model during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. We focused on eight statements clustered into three groups as indicators of the risk perception when the public came across with the data visuals: (1) the level of anxiety, fear and panic arousals, (2) the level of lacking credibility and trust and (3) the level of impression regarding fatality, irreversible effects and catastrophic consequences. For the survey, we selected 24 data visuals, which attracted the most interaction from Facebook and Twitter accounts of the seven most popular news outlets. We asked respondents to score eight items for each 24 data visuals of COVID-19 news reports. The results suggest that the respondents find the data presented in visuals credible and trustworthy and they agree that the visuals depict risk elements in many cases. Implications of the low and high levels of risk perception regarding data visuals on media for the risk communication theory are discussed.

COVID ISSUE: Visual Narratives About COVID-19 Improve Message Accessibility, Self-Efficacy, and Health Precautions

Frontiers in Communication

Visual narratives are promising tools for science and health communication, especially for broad audiences in times of public health crisis, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we used the Lifeology illustrated “flashcard” course platform to construct visual narratives about COVID-19, and then assessed their impact on behavioral intentions. We conducted a survey experiment among 1,775 health app users. Participants viewed illustrated (sequential art) courses about: 1) sleep, 2) what COVID-19 is and how to protect oneself, 3) mechanisms of how the virus works in the body and risk factors for severe disease. Each participant viewed one of these courses and then answered questions about their understanding of the course, how much they learned, and their perceptions and behavioral intentions toward COVID-19. Participants generally evaluated “flashcard” courses as easy to understand. Viewing a COVID-19 “flashcard” course was also associated with improved self-efficacy an...