The visual representation of germs: a typology of popular germ depictions

Germs have been represented visually in popular texts for well over a century, yet little is understood about the dominant practices/concepts resident in such images. This paper presents a new typology of popular germ representations from the UK consisting of three main categories: Scientific, Carrier and Analogous. The first category largely pertains to the realm of the scientist, the second to domestic space and social conventions, and the third, primarily, to the realm of the imagination. The study identifies thirteen sub-categories and discusses each in turn. We argue that a more varied range of germ images exist than the previous binary positioning of germ representations in the United States – harmful and beneficial – would suggest. We account for the continued adoption of an analogous approach in relation to four key cultural forces and problematize the use of monster-like imagery and its alignment of ugliness and obesity with disease.