This image does (not) make me feel climate change is important

Climate change is one of the most communicated topics of our time. Its communication is characterized by complexity, credibility issues, and information overload (Hagen, Middel, & Pijawka, 2015; Moser, 2009). In the Netherlands, many people are aware of the issue. It hence becomes essential to render it an important topic to consider, i.e. to create feelings of salience (Lorenzoni, Nicholson-Cole, & Whitmarsh, 2007). Communicators use different visualizations to achieve this, among them information visualizations (Johansson, Schmid-Neset, & Linnér, 2010). However, it is unclear how effective the artistic modifications of information visualizations, so-called artistic information visualizations (AIVs), are. This Master thesis therefore poses the following main research question: How engaging in terms of feelings of salience do viewers perceive AIVs on climate change, and what reasoning for felt salience can be identified? Three-part qualitative research consisting of a short survey, sorting task and semi-structured interview was employed (O’Neill, Boykoff, Niemeyer, & Day, 2013). Participants were asked to sort 25 visualizations: the AIVs and four other visualization forms, each form depicting the same five problem-focused climate change themes. The AIVs were found least engaging in comparison to the other four visualization types, i.e. they least made viewers feel climate change is important. In contrast, photos were found to be the most engaging, followed by artistic simulations, cartoons and information visualizations. Different possible explanations for this little engagement with AIVs could be identified. First, participants indeed made numerous references to the visual types’ capabilities concerning their cognitive and emotional engagement (sub-RQ1): clarity, immediacy, and emotional impact. These could largely be found in photos, and artistic simulations. Second, the audience’s educational background played a role in the decoding (sub-RQ2). Participants with art (science) education engaged more with AIVs (information visualizations) than participants without this education. It appears that – at least for this sample – the concepts of AIVs surrounding their free choice of data focus and artistic freedom (Kosara, 2007) need to be revised for a complex topic such as climate change. A need for clarity, at least when targeted at the general public might be necessary. This finding supports an art novice – art expert difference for the interest in, and understanding of complex artworks such as AIVs (Bourdieu, 1979; Silvia, 2005). Therefore in this research, both visual properties and audience background played important roles in the decoding, supporting recent research in the field of information visualizations (Kennedy, Hill, Allen, & Kirk, 2016). Third, art’s involvement in climate change (sub-RQ3) was generally not opposed to. This shows how scholars could be less concerned about art’s participation in the climate change debate, and more about how artists could be involved. While AIVs had clarity issues, apocalyptic artistic simulations suffered from credibility problems because of their drastic content. Cartoons elicited morality deliberations concerning the use of humour for such a serious topic. Further, more generalizable research is needed to support the present research findings.