Voice and Vision: Qualitative Data Display for COVID-19 Writings

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound and pervasive effects on global health and welfare. However, much of the data which is presented with regards to these impacts relies on visual displays of quantitative data. This presentation highlights visual displays of qualitative data, utilizing written media transcripts, and federal reports [CDC, etc.] to create visual displays using wordcloud and word tree technologies. By creating visual displays of qualitative data, we utilize rich narrative to create compelling visual structures that share words and stories as well as numbers. As Singer (2014) stated, "Infectious diseases are at once biological realities and social constructions, that reflect both biological and social relationships and interactions. This fact makes anthropology particularly well suited to understand and generate key insights about infectious disease" (2014, p.14).