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Energizing through Visuals: How Social Entrepreneurs Use Emotion-Symbolic Work for Social Change
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This longitudinal study examined how social entrepreneurs combating plastic pollution use visual and verbal communication to drive social change. The authors identified 'emotion-symbolic work' as a strategy that employs visuals to elicit moral shock, then transforms negative emotions into collective energy for enacting pro-environmental behavior.
Little is known about how social entrepreneurs try to induce enactment of their cause, especially when this cause is difficult to embrace. Through a longitudinal study, we analyze how anti-plastic pollution social entrepreneurs use multimodal (visual and verbal) interactions to influence their targets and promote their cause. Our findings reveal that these social entrepreneurs use what we call “emotion-symbolic work,” which involves using visuals and words to elicit negative emotions through moral shock, and then transforming those emotions into emotional energy for enactment. The emotional transformation process entails connecting target actors to a cause, a collective identity, and the social entrepreneurs themselves. Our exploration of emotion-symbolic work offers new ways of seeing by emphasizing the use of multimodal interactions to affect emotions in efforts to influence target actors to enact a cause.
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From analytical to empathetic: Disruptive communication for action-based decision-making
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Researchers examined how disruptive communication approaches can be shifted from purely analytical to empathetic framing to better drive engagement and action-based decision-making around plastic pollution. The study found that combining emotional resonance with concrete action pathways makes disruptive communication more effective at motivating behavioral and policy change.
From analytical to empathetic: Disruptive communication for action-based decision-making
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This study examined how disruptive communication strategies can more effectively engage diverse audiences around plastic pollution and translate awareness into concrete action and policy decisions. The research found that empathetic framing combined with actionable guidance improves the impact of disruptive communication beyond emotional provocation alone.
Promoting Conservation Intentions Through Humanized Messaging in Green Advertisements: The Mediation Roles of Empathy and Responsibility
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Researchers conducted an experiment with 505 participants to test whether humanized messaging in green advertisements increases conservation intentions regarding plastic waste. They found that ads depicting marine animals in human-like terms significantly boosted empathy, perceived responsibility, and willingness to take conservation action. The study suggests that connecting people emotionally with the impacts of plastic pollution through humanized narratives can be an effective strategy for promoting environmental behavior change.
Framing Ecological Crisis: A Multimodal Semiotic Analysis of Contemporary Environmental Posters
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This study analyzed four environmental posters, including one about plastic pollution, to see how words and images work together to persuade viewers. It found that posters use commands, naming, reframing and wordplay alongside visuals to shape how people understand environmental crises.
Communication Determinants of Environmental Behavior in the Context of Microplastics : An Examination of Cultural Cognition Types, Risk Perception, Psychological Distance, and Negative Emotions
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A survey of 1,000 Korean adults found that hierarchical cultural cognition influenced pro-environmental behavior toward microplastics through risk perception, psychological distance, and negative emotions, while individualist cognition operated only through negative emotions. These findings show that culturally tailored communication strategies — not one-size-fits-all messaging — are needed to translate public awareness of microplastic risks into actual behavior change.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.