Communication Design Quarterly May 2019 Open Access

Risk selfies and nonrational environmental communication

Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder Oregon State University

Abstract

Risk associated with a Pacific Northwest earthquake was expressed through a moderately successful social media risk communication campaign known as #14gallons. #14gallons encouraged people to collect and store 14 gallons of fresh water per person and take a selfie with their water, tagging others to do the same. This article frames the hashtag campaign within scholarship on the rhetoric of risk, defines the genre of the "risk selfie," and then uses a modified version of Laurie Gries's iconographic tracking method to produce information about the campaign that can be productively employed by risk communication practitioners.

Journal
Communication Design Quarterly
Published
2019-05-10
DOI
10.1145/3331558.3331565
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Topics
rhetorical criticism genre theory social media
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