Digital corporate communication and visual communication

Abstract

Images have always played an important role in human-to-human communications. Today many images are digital; they are created in and distributed through digital media. As a result, image-based apps have increased in popularity. Scholars speak of a radical shift in how we communicate and interact with others through the use of visual content. This phenomenon, referred to as a ‘visual turn’, offers great opportunities for corporate communication professionals who can now leverage the power of visual content to create memorable digital experiences. This chapter introduces the ‘visual turn’ phenomenon in digital corporate communications and offers an overview of the most important knowledge about digital visual communication. It presents a newly developed theoretical framework that can help professionals in creating an architecture of visual content for planning effective digital visual communication, and it applies this to an illustrative example. The chapter concludes with reflections and suggestions for further research avenues.