Graphs of grief and other green feelings: the uses of affect in the study of environmental communication

How can theories of affect and felt emotions be useful in studying the communication of environmental crises? Beginning from tears spilt over a graph of transgressed planetary boundaries published in an academic paper, this article explores the presentation in graphic visual forms of affective imagery and a growing sophistication amongst scientists, policymakers and activist communicators in the visualization of information, data and stories employed to carry the often difficult and complex messages of current earth systems crises. Critically, this article attends to the “emotion work” of such images. Taking a lead from cultural sociology and attempting to elucidate the relationship between societies under pressure and its choice of texts, this article considers the environmental documentary Cowspiracy Anderson, K., & Kuhn, K. (2014). Cowspiracy. San Francisco, CA: AUM Films & First Spark Media. to ask questions of affect’s relation to expressions of the earth systems crisis, which is also a crisis of culture.