Communicating Through Photographs to Create Environmental Awareness and Influence Behavior Change. Background Paper

Paper by Catherine Mungai, MEG 2008 student. Images and in this case photographs are powerful tools which can be used to raise awareness about the environment; the problems and the solutions. They can also be used to engage actively with the public through competitions and on online portals. Notably, it is crucial to understand how human beings interpret messages and in so doing, design effective communication campaigns. This literature review paper attempts to address these issues and to show that though useful, photographs can also be misused and manipulated towards different ends. Resources about communication using images (photography) provided much information for this study as did resources about environmental governance. However, few addressed both subjects as one entity. During the literature review process I realised that photographs are used widely in communicating about the environment, this is especially so in websites, blogs, popular media and in different types of publications.

The_Power_of_Images_in_Environmental_Governance_Catherine_Mungai.pdf — PDF document, 309Kb