Visual environmental communication is a relatively new field within the communication
continuum. Visual communication has been highly studied, and environmental communication
has been studied, but there has been little interdisciplinary research. Further, some of the
persuasive visual environmental communication used in the mass media is fear-based, and there
isn’t enough information available to determine when these specific fear-based appeals are
effective. When used incorrectly, the result of fear-based visual communication is not only
ineffective, it can be detrimental (Joffe, 2008). The success of persuasion through visual
communication depends on several factors, one of which is the viewer’s personal connection to
the subject. This study compares opposite ends of the persuasive emotive spectrum: fear-based
visual environmental communication and reassuring visual environmental communication. A
second experiment measures attitude when fear-based visual environmental communication is
paired with differing amounts of geographical distance, as a measure of physical
proximity/personal connection. Subjects are undergraduate students from varying disciplines and
the experiment measures their attitude change when presented with fear-based environmental
imagery.
There is a distinct need to be able to explain exactly how to visually present information
to change an audience’s attitude, identify which audience is reached with which types of visual
communication, specify how to entice an audience to engage and choose to use this message, and
outline how to create a lasting attitude change