Images of hospices on social media: The #notdingy campaign

Borgstrom, Erica (2016). Images of hospices on social media: The #notdingy campaign. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 3(3) pp. 105–111.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.3.3.317

URL: http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/6244/hospices-...

Abstract

In June 2015, hospices were described as ‘dingy’ on two popular British television dramas. This spurred a social media protest using the hashtag #notdingy. Images were a central component of the #notdingy campaign, which asserted that hospices are positive places in which to be cared for, in many cases until death. In this essay I analyse both the formal qualities of these images as well as their encoded meanings and symbolism (Pauly 2005). I argue that the value of these kinds of images lies less in what is actually depicted than in the images’ affective or emotional force, which can absorb particular meanings and symbolism in the context of a social media campaign.

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