Social Research For A COVID and Post-COVID World - An Initial Agenda

3/4/2020 Social Research for a COVID and Post-COVID World: An Initial Agenda
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Social Research for a COVID and Post-COVID

World: An Initial Agenda
Deborah Lupton
Mar 29 · 8 min read
All social research, whether it is directly focusing on the pandemic or not, is now
inevitably changed. We are now dealing with a COVID world and a post-COVID world
lies in our future.
As an academic who had initial training in health sociology and medical anthropology
and then went to complete a Master of Public Health and a doctorate in the sociology of
https://medium.com/@deborahalupton/social-research-for-a-covid-and-post-covid-world-an-initial-agenda-796868f1fb0e 1/7
public
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Among many other health-related topics, I have conducted research on two major
global health topics that received major policyCarlos
and public health as well as mass media
Saez Macia
attention. The first was the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which emerged in the early 1980s.
The second was the so-called ‘obesity epidemic’, sparked by public
Continuar comohealth
Carlos
announcements and mass media reporting in the late 1990s and into the early 2000s
that levels of ‘obesity’ were rising dramatically worldwide,
tu dirección de correo accompanied by major
electrónico y tu foto de perfil
con medium.com.
health problems. HIV/AIDS and the obesity Consulta
crisis generated la política deresearch
an enormous privacidad
momentum among not only social researchers but also social activists, community
groups and artists, all of whom played a vital role in helping to understand the social,
cultural, psychological and political consequences and impacts of these phenomena.
My contribution to social research on HIV/AIDS began with my doctoral thesis, which

investigated how the Australian press covered the pandemic from its first mention to
1990, a period marked by dramatic shifts in who was considered to be ‘at risk’ from
infection (the thesis was published in book form in 1994 as Moral Threats and
Dangerous Desires: AIDS in the News Media). While I was completing the doctorate part-
time, I was employed full-time as a researcher on a public health project investigating
the sexual behaviour and prevalence of HIV and other STDS among multi-partnered
heterosexual Australians. I went on to be involved in several other major HIV/AIDS
projects, including co-authoring a second book that addressed televisual portrayals of
HIV/AIDS.
In the wake of the massive attention devoted to the obesity crisis from the late 1990s
onwards, I wrote my book Fat in an attempt to provide a sociological perspective on the
fat-shaming, social discrimination and stigma that were so evident in government
health campaigns and news reports. I also authored numerous other publications
exploring the social aspects of this ‘epidemic’ and edited a special journal issue on
digital media and body weight.
Now the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has erupted, affecting all regions of the
world, and the news media are dominated by reporting developments and effects. At
the time of writing, tens of thousands of lives have already been lost worldwide, and
many healthcare systems are straining under the burden of caring for unprecedented
numbers of seriously ill patients with pneumonia. Everyday lives have been disrupted:
schools and workplaces are closed, many people have lost their jobs, vast populations
have
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Mediumconfined tolog
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Social research is again urgently needed to document people’s everyday experiences of
living in this moment, how different countriesCarlos
and governments
Saez Macia are addressing the
pandemic and what social changes are occurring now or will be happening in the post-
COVID world. Social researchers need to be contributing to understandings
Continuar como Carlos of how
people have been affected by living in the pandemic, both physically and mentally, and
what measures and policies have been most effective
tu dirección and helpful.
de correo There
electrónico are de
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dedicated funding calls and schemes directed Consulta
at supporting la política
social as welldeasprivacidad
medical
and public health research into COVID in the future, just as there were for HIV/AIDS
and obesity, and this is the time for those of us who have the relevant expertise and
interest to be considering what we can offer to this much-needed research response.
The current pandemic shares some features of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and obesity
crisis, but there are many differences as well. All three health crises received world-
wide media attention and affected many countries. All have involved the identification
of social groups deemed both ‘most at risk’ and ‘risky to others’, accompanied by
scapegoating, victim-blaming, stigmatisation, marginalisation and neglect. These
groups have differed across the health crises themselves, but also changed over time for
each health crisis. All three crises are intensely political, involving claims and counter-
claims about authoritative knowledge, whose advice should be trusted and the best
way to inform and manage publics and ‘at risk/risky’ groups. The HIV/AIDS and
obesity crises have also involved the development of innovative grassroots support
systems and activist networks that have played a major role in supporting ‘at risk/risky
groups’, countering stigma and marginalisation and generating and sharing citizen-led
knowledges. There is already evidence of these systems and networks emerging in
response to the COVID threat.
The COVID pandemic differs in many crucial ways from the HIV/AIDS and obesity
crises, however. One difference is the sheer scope and rapid expansion of its effects
beyond the health-related impacts. COVID is a truly global health problem that erupted
and spread extremely quickly, meaning that organisations and individuals had little
time to make sense of it and respond adequately to it. Another key difference is the
economic and other social effects of the COVID pandemic beyond the immediate health
effects of contracting or passing on the virus. The quarantining, social isolation and
physical distancing measures required to limit the rate of spread of the COVID virus
(SARS-Cov-2)
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A third major difference is that digital media and devices are playing a far more crucial
role in the COVID pandemic compared with the HIV/AIDS
Carlos and the obesity crises, when
Saez Macia
the internet, mobile devices and social media either did not exist or were in their early
days. We have already seen how social media have contributed to the
Continuar como spread of
Carlos
misinformation and panics but have also played a crucial role in helping people deal
with the impact of physical isolation by offering mediated
tu dirección de correoforms of social
electrónico connection
y tu foto de perfil
con medium.com.
that have alleviated boredom and loneliness. Consulta
Finally, social la política
research de privacidad
methods and plans
have had to be rethought. Physical distancing measures mean that for the time being,
traditional modes of in-person research cannot take place. Digital technologies (or
even old-school pen-and-paper methods) offer some solutions for conducting fieldwork
in a pandemic.
Bearing all these issues in mind, below I have come up with a list of research questions
as a way of kick-starting a social research agenda for a COVID and post-COVID world.
(Please note the important caveat that these are only my initial thoughts based on the
current situation in these early months of the pandemic where conditions are rapidly
changing.) Researching these topics will generate better understandings not only of the
current social impact of COVID, but also continuing or new impacts into the future.
Findings will have immediate and long-term applications for contributing to policy and
service delivery and development to better support publics as they deal with and
recover from the myriad challenges they are experiencing to their ways of life and
health status. They will also offer ways forward for how to deal with and manage new
large-scale health crises in ethical and effective ways.
Key social research questions
· What are the situated responses of government agencies and healthcare organisations
to the pandemic, and how do these differ between countries? Which agencies and
organisations have been most effective in countering the spread of the COVID virus
among their populations?
· How are people from diverse social groups and geospatial locations responding to the
crisis? What are their lived experiences and social relationships as the pandemic’s
effects continue to unfold and into the future of the post-COVID world? How do
attributes such as location, age, gender, health or disability status, ethnicity/race,
income,
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· Which individuals and social groups are the target of neglect, stigmatisation or
marginalisation? How has this been recognised andSaez
Carlos dealtMacia
with (or ignored) in different
socio-geographical-political environments?
· What were the rationales behind the widespread panic-buying that emptied
supermarket shelves of essentials for weeks on end, and how can such responses be
better managed in the future? con medium.com. Consulta la política de privacidad
· How have people’s general wellbeing and mental health been affected by the current
conditions of the crisis and into the future, and how can they be better and more
ethically and effectively supported?
· How have family relationships been influenced by confinement to family homes for
long periods, and what are the positive or negative consequences (e.g. increased risk of
being a victim of family violence for women and children, post-natal women losing
hands-on help with their new infants from extended family members)?
· How are children and young people coping with the disruption to their usual routines,
education and social relationships, now and into the post-COVID future?
· What are the lived experiences of healthcare workers and other key support workers
in dealing with the working conditions they are faced with, and what are the
implications for their current and long-term health and wellbeing? How can they be
supported now and into the future?
· What socioeconomic support systems offered by government and non-government

agencies have best managed the crisis and how should they deal with support into the
post-COVID future?
· How are digital technologies contributing to disseminating information — which are

most helpful and useful for publics?
· What digital media and devices have been most helpful and useful for publics in
dealing with physical isolation conditions?
· Which digital health technologies have been most effective and helpful for offering
self-diagnosis and healthcare? What are the experiences of patients and healthcare
workers
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· What is the role played by novel digital technologies
Google such as ‘smart’ devices, drones
and automated decision-making software in health surveillance and diagnosis
systems? Carlos Saez Macia
· How have educational and working-from-home arrangements been supported by

digital technologies, and which have been most useful and helpful?
· How have the working practices of teachers at all levels of the education system
(primary to tertiary) changed? What arey the losses and
los términos gains for
del servicio de both students and
medium.com.
teachers in moving to online teaching and learning?
· How will education and work systems change as a result in the post-COVID world?
· How have major internet companies as well as start-ups responded to the crisis?
· Which forms of grassroots organisation and networking have emerged and which are
most helpful and effective for communities, now and into the future?
· How have more-than-human agents contributed to supporting people’s health and

wellbeing in conditions where they have been forced to be physically distant from other
people (e.g. companion animals, plants, natural landscapes, bodies of water)?
· What research methods can we use to understand the more-than-representational

dimensions of people’s lived experiences (their affective and sensory responses,
experiences of space and place)?
· What social and cultural theories can help us understand the COVID and post-COVID
worlds?
Let’s get started!
Photo by Liam Richards on Unsplash
Covid 19 Social Research Digital Media Public Health Sociology
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3/4/2020 Social Research for a COVID and Post-COVID World: An Initial Agenda

Anyone can publish on Medium per our Policies, but we

Continuar como Carlos

Para crear tu cuenta, Google compartirá tu nombre,