Page 189 - Demo

English Summary187ESecond, when looking into the narratives, the most observed were those of risks and benefits of technologies. Risk narratives were often more prevalent than benefit narratives. Actors used visualisations to make textual narratives more concrete and visible by relating the technology to ‘casual’ objects or events, by isolating objects or by magnifying objects that are impossible to see with the naked eye. Three ways of using visual and textual narratives were revealed: (1) Online coalitions visually emphasise different aspects than those emphasised textually; (2) Visualisations strengthen or weaken a textual narrative, to the extent that visualisations can contribute to the breaking apart of a coalition or the uniting of multiple discourse coalitions; (3) Actors give positive, negative and neutral meanings to the technology by using a variety of image–text storylines.Third, with respect to circulation, we found three processes of circulation: (1) Circulation within a platform, in which visualisations are accompanied with different pieces of text; (2) Circulation across platforms, in which visualisations on Twitter give meaning almost always using a single image–text storyline, but on the open Web, they give meaning by using multiple image–text storylines; (3) Circulation across topical contexts, in which visualisations are used in different contexts or they are networked to a topic and the network changes with the evolvement of the controversy.Based on these findings, I conclude that in online policy controversies actors most of all disseminate information in a ‘scientific’ manner. This is based on the findings that data visualizations are used extensively, more by opponents than by proponents and more with a negative textual message than a positive one. A second conclusion is that visualisations play an essential role in policy controversies about contested technologies not only as objects responding to external claims or events, but also in themselves. Their content puts at the centre considerations and concerns that might otherwise remain marginal. The narratives constructed by visual content and techniques add new information or focus, creating a layer of meaning more multifaceted and richer than the one given to the issue by using text only. A third conclusion is that online visualisations often frame a technology as posing risks or offering benefits. They do so by making more concrete and visible these risks and benefits and by encouraging to rethink these risks and benefits as embedded in routine activities and ordinary objects. Finally, in online policy controversies, the meaning visualisations convey may change over time. Efrat.indd 187 19-09-2023 09:47