The Rhetoric of Visual Representations: Visualizing the COVID-19 Pandemic in Polish Media

Visual data displays direct our ways of perceiving and understanding represented information. However, little is known about how data visualizations influence perception of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Pandemic literacy enables us to see critically the visual rhetoric of COVID-19 in the public sphere. This chapter examines the role of COVID-19 data visualizations in communicating risk in Poland. Drawing on the notion of framing theory, the essay analyses the rhetorical potential of visual data and the impact of visual information (visinfo) on public reaction to epidemic disease. A visual content analysis was employed to investigate COVID-19 communication and different rhetorical strategies in Polish media coverage of COVID-19. Results show that data visualizations presented information focused on threats and advisable prevention methods that could lead to reactions of fear and uncertainty. Interestingly, no data were found showing an individual’s likelihood of infection. Important theoretical and empirical implications are discussed