In addition to Worldview’s annual research on sentiments and attitudes towards overseas development aid, Wave 5 also featured novel research investigating the responses of the Irish public to images used by Irish INGO’s in their various campaigns. Over 140 debranded images were submitted by Dóchas members which they have used in their communications, advocacy, fundraising, and educational campaigns. From these, 71 were selected based on a range of different attributes: eye contact, gender, age, emotion, clarity and so on. These images were de-branded to isolate the effect of the image and not organisational logos as associated perceptions. This also allowed anonymity for organisations.
Images were categorised and selected from a range of attributes – “active” and “passive”, “happy emotion” and “sad emotion”, and included different genders, numbers of people, and levels of eye contact with the camera – to test how these attributes work in impacting respondents’ emotions.
Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed. You can find each on a dedicated page in the ‘Further Resources’ page. Below, you can find the consolidated Wave 5 imagery insights deck, which has been delivered to Dóchas members at a webinar exploring the results and how they fit within the Dóchas Ethical Communications Guidelines. That webinar is also available on the ‘Further Resources’ page.
Learn more about what influences reactions to images, and what that means for engagement.