Images might be the most effectively persuasive tool that narratives have. Anyone can say that napalming Vietnam is bad, but to see a little girl running naked through the streets because all of her clothes caught on fire is a much more emotional experience. It's hard to imagine a narrative that was not strengthened by the use of images, except for one: the 2020 Covid pandemic.
Crises make for good opportunities for political action; it seems unlikely that the US would ever go to war with Iraq if not for September 11th. Harriman and Lucaites argue that images of crises, like the Vietnam war, provide backing for political goals when they say "commentary on the Web repeatedly turned to the images from [the Vietnam War] in order to comprehend the new photos of Americans [in Iraq]." (Harriman and Lucaites 173) The existence of this blog proves that Covid, while perhaps less dramatic, is being used similarly, as players like Trump, Sanders, and Biden have all used Covid as a piece of a greater argument. However, part of what makes crises so useful is their emotional connection. As stated above, images generally cause greater emotional reactions than verbal arguments. Why, then, have none of these players used images in their arguments?
That's a bit hyperbolic. Images are seen with some regularity in discussions of Covid-19. The problem is that they're not the images anyone would reasonably expect. In times of crisis, the argument is usually that the world is in such unrest that it needs a great leader - the one supported by the narrative - to swoop in and save everyone. I once again direct your attention to September 11th, used in just such a way to justify the actions of Dick Cheney. Famous images from 9/11 include smoking skyscrapers, crying firefighters in mountains of rubble, bodies falling from incredible heights towards death. Bush's approval ratings immediately after skyrocketed, and the correlation is easy to explain. By emphasizing pain and suffering, Bush's camp accomplished two goals: first, it exaggerated the necessity of retaliation, and second, it clouded judgment with feelings. Together, this made the choice to invade Iraq seem more reasonable that it actually was. Thus, one would expect images of Covid-19 to be much more dire, perhaps showing bodies piling in the streets or grandmothers choking on their own mucus. Instead, narratives seem to take the Jonathan Shay approach, using images of trauma "to construct a narrative of one's life that can contextualize the traumatic moment." (Harriman and Lucaites 183) The most popular Covid-19 images have been quite hopeful, showing nurses triumphantly opposing forces of evil and joyfully combating danger. The fact that Covid-19 is an illness shouldn't make a difference, either. The more dramatic images were popular during crises like swine flu and ebola; even as far back as the Spanish Flu did we see pictures of deaths upon deaths. The question then becomes why Covid-19 doesn't use these images, and how that benefits players.
The brief answer is that the images don't exist. Deaths from Covid-19 are more manageable than those of earlier diseases. Ebola took place in western Africa, a region without the infrastructure necessary to take care of an epidemic or the piles of bodies that the epidemic created, and Spanish Flu was much more contagious and deadlier, so it makes sense that as more people died it would become to difficult to contain and necessitate throwing out cadavers. Covid-19 has none of these qualities, and Wuhan, the one place suspected to actually have piles of bodies, won't provide images to use. Covid does not kill enough to support call-for-action narratives. In this way, ignoring the crisis visually is in fact the best way to write the narrative. There is, of course, the fear of the unknown. Because so many people misunderstand Covid-19, they come to wild conclusions that it is much deadlier and scarier than it truly is. More importantly, though, is that writers of narratives can play on the public's ignorance. When audiences don't know whether bodies are piling in the streets are not, and they are willing to accept whatever they are told, it is enough to simply say that bodies are piling in the streets. Repeat this constantly from every media source, and suddenly it becomes an obvious and inalienable truth, perpetuated not just by the media but by consumers of the media, until resistance is unthinkable. This strategy is fantastic, as it creates not just followers but followers who actively discourage breaking from the general consensus. Unfortunately, it is also reliant on a lack of images. If images are used, then the audience comes to understand that they've been fed exaggerated information. As opposed to other crises, which inundate people with so much information that they become emotionally attached to the state of affairs, Covid-19 withholds information so that people are emotionally attached to the emotions they are told to feel.
Covid-19 makes for an excellent narrative not in spite of the fact that it's unverifiable but because of it. People felt the ramifications of 9/11 in their daily lives, but they experience Covid-19 through a computer screen. This might seem to weaken the impact, and perhaps it does, but the advantages of this setup are undeniable. When none of your information comes from personal experience, all of your information is what you are told to believe.
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