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Visual and Textual Storylines by Coalitions in a Policy Controversy5533.1 IntroductionThe study of global politics engages more and more with aesthetics (Bleiker, 2017), and the visual is increasingly being addressed in the study of controversies – intractable policy disputes that are ‘immune to resolution by appeal to the facts’ (Schön & Rein, 1994, p. 4). More and more studies acknowledge the capacity of visual artefacts to influence our understanding of the world (Messaris & Abraham, 2011) and to shape dynamics of politics (Lilleker et al., 2019), to the extent that some perceive a visual turn (Bleiker, 2018). In controversies and networks, studies demonstrate, visuals play an essential role as they can exercise power, construct knowledge, affect attitudes, and mobilize publics (Latour, 1986; Latour & Weibe, 2005; Lilleker et al., 2019; Mattoni & Teune, 2014; Rommetveit & Wynne, 2017). Thus, the dissemination of visuals merits further investigation. And indeed, methodological, conceptual, and technical explorations have contributed to the emergence of various approaches in which the role of the visual in politically contested issues is analyzed (e.g., Campbell, 2007; Morseletto, 2017; Schneider & Walsh, 2019).The study of using visuals in policy controversies usually focuses on the visual object: where and by whom images have been produced, with what aesthetic and graphic qualities, for what reasons, and with what effect (e.g., Clancy & Clancy, 2016; Krause & Bucy, 2018; O’Neill, 2013). This, to a large extent, overlooks the multidimensionality of the studied subject and decontextualizes the visual. Following recent work (Hendriks et al., 2017; Metze, 2018b), we take notice of the particular ways in which visuals are being used and develop a comprehensive approach whereby we analyze visualizations as part of a collection of ideas, verbal statements, and storylines. Visualizations can be concrete visual objects that represent reality (e.g. a printed photograph, a diagram on a screen) or mental or imaginary ones (see, for example, Rommetveit & Wynne, 2017). Using these visual objects is the essence of the practice of visualizing. Thus, visualization as a practice is a dynamic process in which visual objects are (re)selected and (re)interpreted to give information or tell a story in ocular ways (see also Van Beek et al., 2020). This conceptual approach is applied in this paper to controversies over shale gas.The exploration of shale gas is controversial in most countries (Bomberg, 2017b; Dodge & Metze, 2017; Hopke & Simis, 2017; Metze & Dodge, 2016; Williams et al., Efrat.indd 55 19-09-2023 09:47