Building a Public Culture of Pandemic Storytelling

From the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, ordinary people around the world have been documenting their experiences in diverse media forms, giving rise to a public culture of pandemic storytelling. This public culture, however, can be transitory. Personal stories may disappear for many reasons. The authors call for scholars to help build and sustain this public culture through the work of digital archiving and research, and the authors emphasize a descriptive imperative, as opposed to theorizing, as the more urgent course of action.