Perspectives: Can researchers tailor visual stories to engage diverse audiences?
As a part of Open Access Week 2024, we are exploring the role of using visual formats to engage wider audiences. In the context of leveraging community engagement for driving action rather than keeping research within closed silos, visual formats can help drive a message more clearly.
We dug deeper into this concept and looked for role-models who have successfully combined effective storytelling, science communication and visuals.
Various modes of visual communication are now at everyone’s fingertips. Illustrations, videos, graphics, comics, interactive formats and high-resolution molecular imagery are just a few examples of how one can get a concept across without too many words!
Here, we narrate interesting conversations and quotes from three individuals who have been exploring visual storytelling in different ways.
What is visual storytelling?
Dr. Arianna Ferrini, a Medical and Science Communicator, says: "Storytelling is like using a compass to follow a map to your destination - the message you want to get across. In science communication, especially when creating materials for different audiences, it's important to always have your map ready. This is even more crucial in visual science communication where you often can't rely on lots of text to explain your concept."
Dr. Ferrini's guide to visual storytelling illustrates various types of narratives that one can use in scientific and medical communication.
These include:
Linear storytelling (a clear start and finish, often with step-wise progression)
Circular storytelling (starts and finishes at the same point)
Branched storytelling (can have multiple alternate endings)
How can a scientist be an effective visual storyteller?
Arunabha Bhattacharya, who uses visual storytelling to convey complex messages around climate change and inspire action says: “visual storytelling... I believe would be most impactful when it bridges the gap between data and emotion, using simplicity to clarify complexity.”
How can researchers tailor their visual stories to engage diverse audiences?
We asked scientist and medical writer Dr. Miranda Bader-Goodman, for her thoughts on effective visual storytelling in science communication to a diverse, non-specialist audience.
“The best advice I was ever given was actually as an undergraduate student: use the KISS method -- Keep It Simple Stupid.
Despite the playful yet slightly derogatory undertone, it gets the point across.”
What is important to consider when using visuals for non-specialist audiences?
Here is what Arunabha Bhattacharya, in context of climate action, had to say: “I think researchers need to adopt a layered storytelling approach. Start by anchoring global data with deeply local or personal imagery that makes the abstract tangible. Visuals of melting icebergs are powerful, but even more compelling when paired with a street in your own city … predicted to be underwater. This grounding could researchers connect universal themes to individual lives...”
Dr. Bader-Goodman says: ‘In visual storytelling, infographics are everything. However, would an 8th grader understand the story? Nothing unites and rallies audiences better than understanding; but even visually presented information can be incredibly complex and hard to decipher.”
What are some examples of effective visual science communication for non-specialists?
Arunabha Bhattacharya: “Discomfort strategically can drive action. Climate change visuals often lean toward showing devastation, but perhaps a juxtaposition of "what could be" versus "what is"—a thriving ecosystem versus a barren one—could emotionally jolt viewers into thinking about their role in these outcomes. Rather than offering immediate clarity, invite cognitive tension...
“By focusing on relatable imagery—like rising sea levels affecting local communities or shifts in biodiversity—they can help non-specialists ... see the stakes, while empowering them to imagine solutions they can support....
“Some strategies could include using an unfinished visual puzzle to engage audiences on climate action could involve displaying a striking side-by-side comparison of two landscapes, one lush and thriving and the other desolate and barren. However, instead of labeling them directly as “before” and “after” climate change, the image might include only a simple question: "What happens next?" or "How did we get here?"
“This lack of explicit explanation forces viewers to pause and think—triggering curiosity and introspection.
“Another strategy could be ...use of humor or metaphors—think of a "climate horoscope" based on scientific trends, forecasting quirky but real planetary shifts—turning abstract data into something more relatable and memorable. These "approaches" make the subject feel less distant, while still carrying the weight of scientific insight.
Researchers need to foster not just understanding but a sense of shared responsibility.”
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