Strategies for stabilising pictorial meaning in a low-literate target group
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Date
2010
Authors
Gaede, Rolf. J
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Communication Science, University of Free State
Abstract
The article discusses the process of developing a nutrition education calendar for an
elderly, low-literate target group in Sharpeville. This occurred in three phases: (a) an
ex-post evaluation of the existing nutrition education material to identify
communicative defects (n=140), (b) pre-testing a sample of semantic units drawn from
a draft version of the nutrition education calendar (n=102), and (c) checking whether
the target group would like to move away from the adopted illustration approach
approximately one year after it was disseminated free of charge in the community
(n=106). In all three phases questionnaires, completed by a research assistant in the
presence of the respondent, were used as the data collection instrument. The main
findings were that (a) several shortcomings relating to object recognition and the
logical fit between the caption and the visual image were identified in the first phase,
(b) the preferred degree of visual abstraction emerged as the main issue during the pretesting
of the draft nutrition education calendar, and (c) during the third phase the
respondents opted to stay with the illustration approach, rejecting the possible
introduction of alternative illustration styles. Taken together, the three phases of the
study illustrate strategies for stabilising the notoriously unstable visual communication
component of nutrition education materials.
Description
Keywords
Nutrition, Education, Sharpeville, Literacy
Citation
Gaede, R. (2010). Strategies for stabilizing pictorial meaning in a lowliterate target group. Communitas, 15, 167-182.