Visualizing agriculture: Data visualizations in agricultural communications

Agricultural communicators play a vital role in communicating agricultural topics and issues to consumers. As involvement decreases, more misinformation and distorted perceptions of the agricultural industry emerge. Communicators can use visual communications to enhance the interpretation, comprehension, and recall of information. This study uses three unique yet interconnected studies to create a clear understanding of visual communications, how it is currently being used to inform consumers and how communicators can improve communication techniques to educate and inform consumers. An in-depth literature review defined, explored, and synthesized prior literature regarding visual communications, data visualizations, and infographics. The second and third phases analyze the agricultural infographics shared by U.S. agricultural organizations and investigate the data visualizations used to present data in an agricultural infographic. Overall, visual communications, especially infographics, were an effective tool to communicate complex information to consumers. This study found pictographs to be the most effective data visualization for agricultural communicators to use in infographics, increasing consumer information recognition.