[Making and Faking the News] Telling a Data Story well: Communicating Covid-19 Variants to a wide audience through a Generative Graphic System

Abstract

This paper will discuss the ethical issues involved with designing scientific data to tell an accessible story, while aiming to stay true to scientific credibility. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, at the end of 2020, MSM and social media discourses were concerned with the “new” or “mutant” variant of Covid-19 (Boyd, 2020). This story about variants suddenly emerging added to the fears and anxieties around the pandemic (Luo et al, 2021; Mach et al, 2021). The UK government in secret Whatsapp messages as part of “Project Fear” appears to have planned to utilise these fears to ensure compliance with government-imposed restrictions (Badshah, 2023). Understanding the science, i.e. the evolving nature of genetic sequences (viruses) and how they are transported across communities, I argue here, could enlighten us to see these processes are ever present – thereby alleviating anxieties of the ‘one’ variant, and also changing behaviours by understanding the importance of keeping to hygiene concepts, for example.