Preserving the memory of the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic: Crowdsourcing a collection of image search queries

The unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic have generated an enormous amount of information and populated the Web with new content relevant to the pandemic and its implications. Visual information such as images has been shown to be crucial in the context of scientific communication. Images are often interpreted as being closer to the truth as compared to other forms of communication, because of their physical representation of an event such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we ask crowdworkers across four regions of Europe that were severely affected by the first wave of pandemic, to provide us with image search queries related to COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of this study is to understand the similarities/differences of the aspects that are most important to users across different locations regarding the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Through a content analysis of their queries, we discovered five common themes of concern to all, although the frequency of use differed across regions.