Complex data and simple instructions: Social regulation during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Responses to the Covid-19 pandemic include the generation of new norms and shifting expectations about everyday, ordinary behaviour, management of the self, and social interaction. Central to the amalgam of new norms is the way information and instructions are communicated, often in the form of simple images and icons in posters and signs that are widespread in public settings. This article combines two sociological concerns – social control and visual research – to investigate the ways social interaction is being recalibrated during the pandemic. It focuses on some of the imagery relied on in public information about the coronavirus and investigates the form and content of various signs, instructions, and notices for their normative underpinnings, their advice and directives which attempt to modify and regulate diverse activities.