The Emotional Business of Communicating Public Health
This workshop by Hannah J. Elizabeth explored the power of emotions in communicating public health through visual media. It tracked how different emotions have been used to manipulate public behaviour in the pursuit of public health. By examining a number of examples of public health related visual media, the workshop looked at the history of who creates health messages, who the intended audiences are, and what unintended consequences might arise with the use of emotions to communicate public health messages.
About the Historian
Hannah J. Elizabeth is a cultural historian of public health, sexuality, emotions, and childhood. Their core research focus is on the histories of HIV in Britain, but they have worked on topics as diverse as polio, smoking, and lesbian health activism.
They completed their PhD in 2017 at the University of Manchester. Their dissertation investigated the representation of HIV positive identities to children and adolescents in Britain, 1981-1997. Their current Wellcome funded research investigates HIV-affected family life in Edinburgh. The project is titled ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It? Building and Maintaining HIV-affected Families through Love, Care, and Activism in Edinburgh 1981-2016’.
