Communication Design Quarterly Dec 2025

Visualizing Flint Lead Contamination Risks: Building a Critical Rhetorical Risk Visualization Ecology

Yeqing Kong

Abstract

This study examines the role of risk visualizations in public health communication through an analysis of the MyWater-Flint Map and Flint Service Line Map , developed during the Flint water crisis. Applying a newly proposed social justice-oriented framework for risk visual design, the study evaluates these maps' effectiveness in communicating risk through dimensions of accessibility, accountability, ethics, productive usability, hybrid collectivity, open systems, and circulation. Findings highlight the importance of community participation in the production and dissemination of risk visualizations. This work sheds light on visual risk communication theory, professional practice, and technical communication instruction.

Journal
Communication Design Quarterly
Published
2025-12-01
DOI
10.1145/3787586.3787590
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Topics
multimodality technical communication disability studies

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (35)

  1. Itchuaqiyaq et al. (2023)
    Decolonizing Community-Engaged Research: Designing CER with Cultural Humility a…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  2. Ledbetter et al. (2023)
    Beyond Policy: What Plants and Communities Can Teach us About Sustainable Chang…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  3. Lee et al. (2023)
    Community-Engaged User Experience Pedagogy: Stories, Emergent Strategy, and Pos…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  4. Pflugfelder et al. (2023)
    Expanding the Scope and Scale of Risk in TPC: Water Access and the Colorado Riv…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Welhausen (2023)
    Visualizing a Drug Abuse Epidemic: Media Coverage, Opioids, and the Racialized …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Show all 35 →
  1. DeTora et al. (2023)
    Introduction to the Special Issue on Visual Communication and Visual Literacy (…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Amidon et al. (2021)
    Visual Risk Literacy in “Flatten the Curve” COVID-19 Visualizations
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. Doan (2021)
    Misrepresenting COVID-19: Lying With Charts During the Second Golden Age of Dat…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Stephens et al. (2020)
    Story mapping and sea level rise
    Communication Design Quarterly
  5. Li (2020)
    Visualizing Chinese Immigrants in the<i>U.S. Statistical Atlases</i>: A Case St…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  6. Sackey (2020)
    One-Size-Fits-None: A Heuristic for Proactive Value Sensitive Environmental Design
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  7. Stephens et al. (2019)
    A Framework for User Agency during Development of Interactive Risk Visualizatio…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  8. Richards (2019)
    An Ethic of Constraint: Citizens, Sea-Level Rise Viewers, and the Limits of Agency
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  9. Zdenek (2019)
    Guest editor's introduction
    Communication Design Quarterly
  10. Heilig (2018)
    Silent Maps as Professional Communication: Intersections of Sociospatial Consid…
    Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  11. Wilson et al. (2018)
    Agency in Action
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  12. Moore et al. (2018)
    Contested sites of health risks
    Communication Design Quarterly
  13. Walsh (2018)
    Visual Invention and the Composition of Scientific Research Graphics: A Topolog…
    Written Communication
  14. Ross (2017)
    The Role of Ethics, Culture, and Artistry in Scientific Illustration
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  15. Jones (2016)
    The Technical Communicator as Advocate
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  16. Jones (2015)
    Information Graphics and Intuition
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  17. Stephens et al. (2015)
    Evaluating the Utility and Communicative Effectiveness of an Interactive Sea-Le…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  18. Wolfe (2015)
    Teaching Students to Focus on the Data in Data Visualization
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  19. Richards (2015)
    Testing the waters
    Communication Design Quarterly
  20. Rawlins et al. (2014)
    Agency and Interactive Data Displays: Internet Graphics as Co-Created Rhetorica…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  21. Gries (2013)
    Iconographic Tracking: A Digital Research Method for Visual Rhetoric and Circul…
    Computers and Composition
  22. Simmons et al. (2012)
    Productive Usability: Fostering Civic Engagement and Creating More Useful Onlin…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  23. Potts (2009)
    Using Actor Network Theory to Trace and Improve Multimodal Communication Design
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  24. Kimball (2006)
    London through Rose-Colored Graphics: Visual Rhetoric and Information Graphic D…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  25. Edbauer (2005)
    Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorica…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  26. Richards (2003)
    Argument and Authority in the Visual Representations of Science
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  27. Grabill et al. (1998)
    Toward a critical rhetoric of risk communication: Producing citizens and the ro…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  28. Allen (1996)
    Ethics and Visual Rhetorics: Seeing's Not Believing Anymore
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  29. BARTON et al. (1993)
    Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  30. Miller (1979)
    A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing
    College English
Also cites 19 works outside this index ↓
  1. Ananny M. (2018)
    Seeing without knowing: Limitations of the transparency ideal and its application to algo…
    New Media & Society  ↗
  2. Besel R. D. (2011)
    Opening the "black box" of climate change science: Actor-Network theory and rhetorical pr…
    Southern Communication Journal  ↗
  3. Costanza-Chock S. (2020)
    Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need
     ↗
  4. DeVasto D. (2019)
    Interventional systems ethnography and intersecting injustices: A new approach for foster…
    Community Literacy Journal  ↗
  5. Diakopoulos N. (2016)
    Accountability in algorithmic decision making
    Communications of the ACM  ↗
  6. Eppler M. J. (2009)
    A systematic framework for risk visualization in risk management and communication
    Risk Management  ↗
  7. 10.1002/9781444324105.ch10
     ↗
  8. Graves L. (2007)
    The affordances of blogging: A case study in culture and technological effects
    Journal of Communication Inquiry  ↗
  9. Harold J. (2016)
    Cognitive and psychological science insights to improve climate change data visualization
    Nature Climate Change  ↗
  10. Potts L. (2013)
    Social media in disaster response: How experience architects can build for participation
     ↗
  11. 10.1089/bsp.2006.0036
     ↗
  12. Spinuzzi C. (2000)
    Genre ecologies: An open-system approach to understanding and constructing documentation
    ACM Journal of Computer Documentation  ↗
  13. Stempel P. (2019)
    Visualizations out of context: Addressing pitfalls of real-time realistic hazard visualizations
    ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information  ↗
  14. Stephens S. H. (2014)
    An analysis of the narrative-building features of interactive sea level rise viewers
    Science Communication  ↗
  15. Stinson S. (2022)
    Embodied environmental risk in technical communication: Problems and solutions toward soc…
     ↗
  16. Strantz A. (2021)
    Using web standards to design accessible data visualizations in professional communication
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication  ↗
  17. Walton R. (2019)
    Technical communication after the social justice turn: Building coalitions for action
     ↗
  18. Weinrib E. J. (2002)
    Corrective justice in a nutshell
    The University of Toronto Law Journal  ↗
  19. Wynne B. (1991)
    Knowledges in context
    Science, Technology, and Human Values  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Apr 2026
    “Is This Ethical?” New Data on the Ethical Principles and Practices of Document Design ↗
    Leslie Seawright; Amy Hodges; Timothy Ponce
    multimodality technical communication disability studies multilingual writers
  2. Computers and Composition Mar 2026
    Accessibility in virtual reality: A multimodal user experience framework for considering hardware, embodied, and spatial access ↗
    Elizabeth Caravella; Rich Shivener
    multimodality technical communication disability studies
  3. Communication Design Quarterly Mar 2025
    Designing Accessible Tables: When Technical Communication Competencies Come into Conflict ↗
    Meredith A. Johnson; Lauren E. Cagle
    writing across the curriculum multimodality technical communication professional writing disability studies
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 2025
    Constructing Websites with Generative AI Tools: The Accessibility of Their Workflows and Products for Users With Disabilities ↗
    Zsuzsanna B. Palmer; Sushil K. Oswal
    multimodality artificial intelligence technical communication disability studies
  5. Communication Design Quarterly Dec 2024
    Review of "Amplifying Voices in UX: Balancing Design and User Needs in Technical Communication by Amber L. Lancaster and Carie S.T. King (Eds.)," Lancaster, A. L., &amp; King, C. S. T. (Eds.). (2024). Amplifying voices in UX: Balancing design and user needs in technical communication. SUNY Press. ↗
    Yingying Tang
    multimodality technical communication disability studies voice and style