Affect, credibility, and solidarity: strategic narratives of NGOs’ relief and advocacy efforts for Gaza

Abstract Purpose This study explores an under-researched area: NGOs’ efforts to provide humanitarian relief during armed conflict. It examines visuals posted on the Instagram accounts of 14 NGOs whose mission is to support civilians impacted by the Gaza humanitarian crisis. Design/methodology/approach This preliminary, pilot study employs critical-cultural and rhetorical methodological approaches of textual analysis and visual rhetoric to analyze Instagram posts ( n = 3,014) of 14 NGOs posted during the first 90 days of the crisis. Findings NGOs’ strategic communication through their Instagram accounts is situated in three key attributes: appeals to credibility, affect, and solidarity to appeal to stakeholders needed to enact advocative and relief efforts. NGOs frequently used a combination of these attributes, sometimes highlighting all three in a single image. The blending of appeals in this manner can help NGOs dislodge or construct messages that resist restriction by and within existing strategic narratives. The dataset evokes a pattern of intentional deliberative rhetoric tempered by some forensic tendencies within three motivating appeals: appeals to credibility, affect appeals, and appeals to solidarity. Practical implications Given this is one of the first studies on the humanitarian crisis, this study provides important understanding of it and how NGOs are responded to it. Social implications This study enhances understanding of the potential influence of NGOs’ strategic communication and potential for social media to produce a critically engaged perspective on conflict and humanitarian crises with international audiences. Originality/value This study gives a valuable insight into the Instagram posting practices of NGOs’ advocacy and humanitarian relief efforts, and to understand the challenges and, literal and figurative, roadblocks to conduct those efforts. Given the recency of the data set, this originality of the study is clear. It is likely the first study of its kind that analyzes NGOs’ strategic communication during the current humanitarian crisis. The study is of value to researchers in a wide range of interdisciplinary range from media and communication studies to political science to crisis management, and to strategic communication professionals, including NGO administration and volunteers, those conducting online content creation, social media campaign management, particularly for the crisis relief and management.