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Chapter 6132textual message. These visuals are used to frame technologies as both risky and beneficial. In energy controversies, infographics and maps are most often used; in food controversies, these are infographics, charts and diagrams. The fact that opponents use data-related visualisations more than proponents do perhaps reflects the effort of opponents to gain legitimacy and credibility for their claims, which often contradict mainstream claims.Infographics, maps, charts and diagrams often depict a combination of information and a frame or sentiment, mixing facts with an expression of perspective on the controversial topic. They include selected information that is being used in combination with a particular textual message, thus giving specific meanings – positive, benefits-related or negative, risk-related – to a policy issue. Chapter 3 shows how in energy technology controversies, actors most of all use maps and infographics and select what information to include in them, thus creating distinct meanings: risks-related meaning (for example, of opposition) or benefits-related meaning (for example, of geological potential). Chapter 4 shows how in food technology controversies, many diagrams and charts with information about food classification are used mainly with a negative textual message about processed food being unhealthy, thus creating a distinct risk-related meaning of a group of foods, i.e., processed foods, being unhealthy. The use of ‘scientific’ visualisations such as infographics, charts and diagrams may be seen as another strategy of framing visuals as endorsed by scientific authority, without actually involving scientists in the generation of these visualisations (e.g., Schwarz, 2013, p. 174).Second pattern: Content associated with a topicActors give meanings by using specific visual content, which is used in a particular way. Patterns of using visual content were present in the two domains, energy and food. Online fracking controversies frequently draw on visuals of natural and industrial landscapes, people (officials, protesters) and flames. Flames were portrayed to give meaning to both risks and benefits. Visualisations which give a risk-meaning show flames where they do not belong, to create a sense of danger, and visualisations which give a benefit-meaning show controlled and routinelyused flames, to create a sense of casualness.In the online-processed food controversy, less data-related visualisation was used and more photography, much of which is about food abundance. In the Efrat.indd 132 19-09-2023 09:47