EXPLORING THE UTILITY OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION ON PROBLEM RECOGNITION AND CONSTRAINT RECOGNITION: AN EXTENTION OF THE SITUATIONAL THEORY OF PUBLICS

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2022

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Abstract

This study applied visual communication to the Situational Theory of Publics (STP) by testing the effects of environmental campaign visuals in different frames (i.e., problem and solution) on individuals’ problem recognition and constraint recognition. Besides, this study explored the predicting roles of negative and positive affect in influencing individuals’ information seeking and processing, the dependent variables in STP. Also, this study revealed how information seeking and processing were related to behavioral intention to take advocated action, and how perceived visual effectiveness moderated this relationship. A between-subjects experiment (frames: problem, solution, control, n = 600) was conducted to test the effects of visual messages regarding the waste pollution issue. The principal component analysis (PCA) revealed two components that participants experienced when exposed to visual messages: negative affect, and positive affect. The mediation analyses confirmed that strategic visual messages had indirect effects on people’s problem recognition and constraint recognition through the induction of affect. However, the direct impacts of visuals on problem recognition and constraint recognition, and the causal relationships between affective responses and problem recognition and constraint recognition remained not fully explored. Furthermore, according to recent studies related to the situational theory of public which involved affect, this study continued to explore the associations between affect and information seeking and processing. An extended structural equation model based on STP including negative and positive affective responses as predictors of information seeking and information processing showed that the new model explained significantly more variances of the outcomes (i.e., information seeking & information processing). In addition, a series of multiple regressions showed that information seeking and information processing were both positively associated with behavioral intention to take advocated action. Moderation analyses revealed the moderating role of perceived visual effectiveness (PVE) on the relationship between information processing and behavioral intention to take advocated action. A comprehensive structural equation model was built based on the original situational theory of publics, with the meaningful inclusions of affect and behavioral intention to take advocated action. The textual analysis revealed participants’ sense-making of the messages in different visual frames. Theoretical and practical impactions, future research, and limitations were discussed.

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