Visualizing resilience in crowdfunding: rhetoric of vulnerable and promotional actors during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war

This study explores how two mega-crises – the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war – are portrayed in photographic performances of resilience in crowdfunding campaign calls of small companies. These companies, aside from being commercial actors, are organizations consisting of individual crisis experiencers and eyewitnesses. The authors examine 234 photographic visuals (168 photographs, 43 photo collages, 21 GIFs and 2 GIF collages) in 53 crisis-related crowdfunding campaign calls (19 Finnish, 18 North American, and 16 Ukrainian) on three different platforms. The data are analysed with a focus on visual rhetoric. The study contributes to previous visual analyses by finding five visually performed connotations of resilience: suffering, endurance, resistance, peer support and hope. The article concludes that, in the era of mega-crises, crowdfunding has become a merged discursive site for both promotional and testimonial performances, varying from a private to communal focus and thereby involving both business-related and societal functions.