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The Meaning of Circulating Visualisations related to a Policy Controversy1075website (Van Beek et al., 2020, p. 501). However, context can also be associated with the topic discussed. Think, for example, of a photograph of a girl eating ice cream appearing on a webpage discussing ways of cooling down in hot weather. The same photograph will have a very different meaning when appearing on a webpage discussing nano-particles in ice cream. In policy studies, revealing the topic of a text discussing a policy issue is seen as a valuable step prior to revealing actors’ ideas of what the issue is about and their way of making sense of it (see, for example, Hjerpe & Buhr, 2014; Metze, 2017). Hence, a topical context is a specific notion of context in which a digital visualisation is used and is significant in communication about a policy issue and therefore worthy of attention in studies on the circulation of digital visualisations.5.2.3 Meaning of a visualisationToneIn revealing a visualisation’s meaning, the text accompanying a visualisation often provides a key to selecting one meaning out of several possible meanings of it (Rose, 2016, p. 121). More specifically, the tone of the accompanying text is important. In media coverage, the tone of the text – positive, negative, or neutral – is determined by the dimension of the discussion that is given focus (Baumgartner et al., 2008). Thus, in relation to nanotechnology in food, the previously mentioned photograph of a girl eating ice cream can be embedded in a webpage with positive (e.g., emphasising that nanotechnology can improve a food’s quality without influencing its taste) or negative (e.g., emphasising that nano-particles, although invisible, can be dangerous) text about nanotechnology. The specific tone can influence how a visualisation is being ‘read’ as it colours the context in which the visualisation is used. Hence, depending on the tone of the accompanying text, a visualisation of a girl eating ice cream can be a sign of technological progress or an alert. Especially when a visualisation is about something invisible such as nanotechnology, revealing the topical context in which the visualisation is used and the tone towards the topic provides valuable clues for decoding the meaning carried by the visualisation. StorylineA visualisation’s meaning is reflected in the story that it ‘tells’. Visualisations narrate storylines (Gibson & Zillmann, 2000; Gommeh et al., 2021) that are used Efrat.indd 107 19-09-2023 09:47