The imaginary of SARS-CoV-2 virion in Spain: comparison between the printed press and the television news

Introduction: Traditional media in Spain are playing a prominent role in the coverage of the COVID-19 disease Objective: To study the visual representations of the SARS-Covid-2 virion in television news programs and printed press, the designer's motivations and their relationship with scientific images of the virion Methodology: A mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology has been followed, with interviews with experts and a statistical analysis with a Chi-Square test applied to 1,732 pieces of news, extracted from the printed version of 19 Spanish daily newspapers, and 121 images of the virion in 5 television news programs Results: Scientific illustrations were used in 36 02% of newspaper's pieces of news, and only in 11 57% of TV news programs images Conclusions: Newspapers are more faithful to scientific images than TV news The most used image assets use the most representative virus forms: elongated spicules ending in tentacles, intended for the sensitization of the dangerousness of the virus than to a merely informative objective