ABSTRACT
The cultural, social, and political concerns that have been brought to the forefront in our daily lives during COVID-19 are deeply entangled in the ways the pandemic is discussed, represented, and visualized in media and culture. By taking a communication and culture focus, the essays included in this volume explore these connections and bridge the sociopolitical and the artistic by exploring arts, culture, and everyday life as a way of navigating through and past COVID-19. During the pandemic, the most ordinary decisions and routines have become infused with ethical and existential questions—in other words, the crisis of the pandemic is often a crisis of the personal as well as the collective. The introduction also unpacks the key terms for this collection, including concepts of the everyday through the lens of Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, and Rita Felski, revealing the challenges of traditional approaches of the everyday during COVID-19; and the outbreak narrative by drawing on Priscilla Wald and Elizabeth Outka. Ultimately, the collection of essays hopes to provide foundational knowledge on the pandemic from the frontlines of COVID-19 through a consideration of the arts, humanities, and social sciences with focus on media and communication.
