The Rhetoric Behind the Coronavirus Propaganda Maps
Has the power of maps gotten out of control?
How long has it been since you stumbled upon a COVID-19 related map? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s only been a few hours. As the World Health Organization stated, the COVID-19 outbreak has been accompanied by a massive infodemic. Thousands of coronavirus maps were produced and will continue on being produced on a variety of sub-topics. We saw them on futuristic dashboards, in scientific papers, on television screens, in the interactive stories of online newspapers, and shared them on social networks faster than a virus.
Maps are among the most effective storytelling device ever created because they often hide their subjective message behind the visual language of scientific objectivity. Every element of a map — from the data sources to colors to the title — will fuel a narrative. We have known since Aristotle how speech rhetoric can be used to persuade through ethos, logos, and pathos. But speech is only one way to communicate, and visual rhetoric examines how the structure of an image has a persuasive effect on an audience.
In this piece, I analyze about 30 maps related to the COVID-19 pandemic produced with an intent to persuade. They have been selected on a variety of topics such as lockdown protests, environment, inequality…
