Visualizing a Non-Pandemic: Considerations for Communicating Public Health Risks in Intercultural Contexts

Purpose: Report the results of a rhetorical analysis that examines the ways that data visualizations of epidemic disease influence risk perception in global contexts, propose strategies that technical communicators can draw from when constructing data visualizations for intercultural audiences in crisis and emergency risk scenarios, and discuss implications for technical communication practice. Method: Rhetorical analysis of four select infographics created by the New York Times to communicate Ebola risk during the outbreak that began in West Africa in 2014 using the following facets associated with design in global contexts: use of warm and cool colors, high versus low-context, and collectivism versus individualism. Results: Data visualizations dramatically shape how risks are perceived. Language-based content may communicate one message about risk, while the visual strategies used in data visualizations may communicate a very different message. Rather than emphasizing control over the outbreak, I argue that the visual message in the infographics in this analysis communicates the opposite. Maps show Ebola breaching national (Figures 1 and 4) and international borders (Figure 2), and line graphs (Figure 3) show sharp increases in cases and deaths in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Conclusion: Warm colors increase risk perception. Further, data visualizations are high-context, collectivistic forms of visual communication, which lessen risk perception among experts but intensify risk perception among nonexperts. Technical communicators can draw from the following guidelines when constructing data visualizations that communicate risk for intercultural audiences: show quantitative information using a variety of visualization strategies, include explanatory text and/or visuals to more fully contextualize data visualizations, and add comparative data visualizations.