Disease X and Africa How a Scientific Metaphor Entered Popular Imaginaries of the Online Public During the COVID-19 Pandemic
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2022
- handle: 10670/1.2xwzpf
- hal: hal-03655199
- doi: 10.17157/mat.9.2.5611
- IRD: fdi:010087059
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info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.17157/mat.9.2.5611
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
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Disease X COVID-19 Pandemics Imaginary Health communication -bio]/Santé publique et épidémiologieSujets proches
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Kelley Sams et al., « Disease X and Africa How a Scientific Metaphor Entered Popular Imaginaries of the Online Public During the COVID-19 Pandemic », HAL-SHS : sciences de l'information, de la communication et des bibliothèques, ID : 10.17157/mat.9.2.5611
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In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the addition of Disease X, a hypothetical infectious threat, to its blueprint list of priority diseases. In the construction of discourse that circulated following this announcement, conceptions of Disease X intersected with representations of Africa. In our article, we share a broad strokes analysis of internet narratives about Disease X and Africa in the six months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (July-December 2019) and during its first six months (January-June 2020). Our analysis focuses on how the scientific concept of Disease X was applied by 'non-experts' to make meaning from risk, uncertainty, and response. These non-experts drew in parallel upon more general representations of power, fear, and danger. This research is particularly relevant at the time of writing, as online narratives about COVID-19 vaccination are shaping vaccine anxiety throughout the world by drawing upon similar conceptions of agency and inequality. Because Disease X in Africa still looms as a perceived future threat, considering the narratives presented in this paper can provide insight into how people create meaning when faced with a scientific concept, a global health crisis, and the idea that there are other crises yet to come.