Internet memes as a multimodal resource for communicating disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was not only a global public health crisis, but it also served as a catalyst in aggravating prevailing social, economic, and health disparities in society. Drawing on critical multimodal discourse analysis, this chapter focuses on the disparity discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US as reflected in internet memes. The memes analysed illustrate disparities in resource allocation and treatment of different healthcare issues, highlighting stark contrasts between privileged and vulnerable social actors in the pandemic arena. The chapter underscores the power of internet memes a productive digital genre to understand ordinary citizens’ understanding of inequality and disparity in healthcare and crisis management.