Health campaigns in an infodemic

The COVID-19 crisis is not only a pandemic, but also an infodemic. In the editorial for this Special Issue about health campaigns and COVID-19, we offer an overview of the context as well as of the three articles in the issue. This opening editorial focuses on the wider context within which the various campaigns took place. While the essays focus on the use of graphics and visual advertisements, we explore meme culture with special emphasis on character assassination, where memes are used to target accountability claims and engender distrust towards powerholders. Hence this presents a backdrop to the cultural and visual environment into which these responses to the global spread of COVID-19 entered.