Acting in the Discursive Midfield? Health Departments during the Corona Pandemic – An Ethnography of the Crisis Adaptation

The emergence of the Corona Pandemic since 2019/2020 presents a complex social and cultural challenge on many levels of human interaction. Media coverage often uses the methaphor of a game of one team against an opponent. On the playground or the discourse field different processes, posiontionings, changes in roles and interactions take place. Thus, it seems to us to be an important task to get a better understanding of the health departments as a central actor of societal health care in a massively changed field of discourse. The use of a game metaphor may possibly be of help in a qualitative research using the approach of discourse in dealing with the team of public health departments.

Student research group

• Lukas Krauß
• Dr. Maja Verena Nielsen

Mentor

• Dr. Michael Pröpper