COVID-19: From Biological Image to the Social Construction of a Virus

Petra Pelletier (1, 2) , Erwan Ferrandon (3) , Claire Lefort (3) , Magali Boespflug (4) , Camelia Popescu (5) , Yann Launay (5) , Cécile Mclaughlin (2) , Sophie Alain (6)

1 LPS (URP_4471) - Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale : contextes et régulation
2 CeReS - Centre de Recherches Sémiotiques
3 XLIM - XLIM
4 CEREGE [Poitiers] - Centre de recherche en gestion
5 IRCER - Institut de Recherche sur les CERamiques
6 RESINFIT - Anti-infectieux : supports moléculaires des résistances et innovations thérapeutiques

The 21st century extreme societal situations, such as the global COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, represent major upheavals for people and societies. The COVID-19 pandemic breakdown that has been elicited by the invisible virus SARS-CoV-2 has led to the collapse of representations of the common reality and it has shattered many important aspects of people’s lives worldwide. Although, SARS-CoV-2 virus which is at the origin of COVID-19 Coronavirus disease remains unseen to people. The invisibility of this virus gives rise to various representations, projections and imaginations which have a preponderant importance within the population because they drive human beings’ cognitions, emotions and behaviours. Therefore, a multidisciplinary research approach is necessary to challenge the “invisible” enemy and the related “domino effects” of consequences. The current research aims to offer a thorough multidisciplinary investigation of this enemy that represents SARS-CoV-2 virus, based on innovative collaboration between hard and soft sciences. To create this synergy, the first objective is to deploy methods from the field of physics, computational sciences and nanometric solutions of microscopy that allow to investigate the biological image of SARS-CoV-2 virus which is an enveloped particle of 120 nm in diameter. Then, the second objective is to investigate the socially constructed representation of SARS-CoV-2 virus by the social representations approach. Therefore, this innovative collaboration that has as main goal the construction of a multidisciplinary overview of SARS-CoV-2 virus images contributes irrevocably to an improved multi-level crisis management effectiveness of current and future pandemic breakdowns.

Mots clés: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2 virus; invisibility; biological image; social constructivism; crisis management

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Physique [physics]; Science non linéaire [physics]

Petra Pelletier, Erwan Ferrandon, Claire Lefort, Magali Boespflug, Camelia Popescu, et al.. COVID-19: From Biological Image to the Social Construction of a Virus. P. Pelletier & M. L. Emek (Eds.). The Era of COVID-19 Uncertainty: Spillover Effects of the Global Pandemic, Iksad Publications: Ankara, Turkey, pp.3-24, 2022, 978-625-8423-99-0. ⟨hal-03619143⟩