NUMBERS & SLOGANS
TOXIC NON TOXIC CULTURES
(Data humanising sketches).
Sketch with integrated data visualisations.
Original data visualisation below shows Covid-19 hyperlink networks with gov.uk and BBC included as nodes. Credit Dr Laszlo Horvath.
Nodes represent 4,397 online news domains with coronavirus coverage. Node size represents the number of hyperlinks pointing to them from different domains.
CHESSINGTON, UNITED KINGDOM - MARCH 30: A nurse takes a swab at a Covid-19 Drive-Through testing station for NHS staff on March 30, 2020 in Chessington, United Kingdom. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has spread to many countries across the world, claiming over 30,000 lives and infecting hundreds of thousands more. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
that’s her weapon the swab
Matthew: So, that’s like the virus trying to get to her, but then with the swab she stops it. That’s what I am getting from that…
Katharine: So, it is a bit like the virus, mutating I see it like that and moving around ‘cos now we’re told… we were told it’s mutated.
Matthew: Oh, I don’t see it as mutating I see it as somebody … near her has sneezed or coughed or something and that’s part of the virus and it’s and it’s her stopping it almost like a sword but a swab… That’s kind of how I see it at least but…
Katharine: That’s brilliant she’s doing battle with it, now I can see that.
Matthew: Yes.
Katharine: She’s fighting it.
Matthew:And it’s kind of like she’s kind of popping it like it’s a bubble, well it is a bubble, and … but that’s her weapon the swab.
Matthew responded to the GIF animation “Toxic Non Toxic Cultures” as part of a Zoom ethnographic fieldwork interview.
Matthew is a white British man in his twenties and he lived in the South West of England during the first national lockdown. He voted to remain in the EU. Interview November 2020.
Credit Dr Laszlo Horvath
they’re so biased
in their reporting
God, I can’t stand the BBC! Like, people used to say it was the BBC and the NHS. I read it recently as well; even this week it said: ‘those two institutions keep the country together’ and I just thought ‘well the NHS does’… So, the BBC is quite impoverished I think relatively in terms of the media, and bloody Laura Kuenssberg! So, they’re so biased in their reporting, they’re so in love with Boris Johnson; even when he completely fucked up they don’t really mention it. They never call him to account at all really, I don’t think.
Quote by Misha, December 2020. Misha is a middle-class Indian woman in her 50s. Misha lives in a city situated in the East Midlands. She voted to remain in the EU.
STOP or GO?
Animated GIF sequence generated from BBC News screenshots of PM statement to the House of Commons on roadmap for easing lockdown restrictions in England 22 February 2021