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Understanding environmental and climate imagery: A 'Nature' semantic differential and implications for influential communication
Original title: Understanding environmental and climate imagery: A ‘Nature’ semantic differential and implications for influential communication
Summary
This study found that scary or upsetting images of environmental problems—like wildfires, plastic pollution, and floods—actually grab people's attention and stick with them more than gentler, hopeful images, challenging the common advice to avoid "doom and gloom" messaging. For everyday people, this matters because how climate and pollution issues (including things like plastic waste) are shown to us shapes whether we take the threats seriously and feel motivated to act, rather than just tuning them out.
How environmental and climate challenges that often evoke strong negative emotions are communicated and responded to is of great importance. These include forest fires, plastic pollution and flooding that can produce fear, sadness and powerlessness. Images are important to this communication, yet how these challenges are captured through visual communication tools and to what outcomes requires further research. This article comparatively measures responses to different environment-related imagery with a climate movement-derived audience, using an original photo-elicitation survey and a semantic differential approach. This article's analysis holds implications for environmental and climate communication with existing and potential movement members. Findings include how negative imagery with threat or vulnerability themes had the strongest emotional reactions and possible usefulness, with this offering a notable counterpoint to commonly received suggestions within current literature that advocate avoidance of such themes.