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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Graphic emotion: a critical rhetorical analysis of online children-related charity communication in poland

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description

This study explores dominant applications of graphic affordances in a sample of children-related charity appeals collected from the official websites of nine prominent Polish foundations in late 2016. It provides a systematic description of salient typographic and iconographic resources and an assessment of their rhetorical potential to solicit donations. The analysis focuses on three dominant discursive strategies used by charity communicators, namely how graphic affordances project utility (logos), confidence (ethos) and engagement (pathos). The article offers a critique of strategic emotional stimulation through aestheticized imagery and infantilizing graphics that replace arguments with connotators of ‘normal’ childhood. Such rhetorical practices generate a strong but incidental incentive to donate to ‘deserving victims’ motivated by moral superiority or ‘warm-glow’ altruism, but may not sustain the level of social capital indispensable to solidarity in charitable giving.