Running head: QUANTITATIVE STUDY PROPOSAL 1

Visual Communication Quantitative Study Proposal

Kaylie Beacham

Kennesaw State University

Human communication is influenced every single day by the digital world. The effects of

visual communication can be seen throughout various forms of content such as advertisements,

video games, television, and movies. These outlets of media have shaped the way we process

information and greatly affect how we have changed our mode of communication. Most

transactional information is done online and people have become accustomed to following trends

whether they believe they are being influenced or not. The question that is important to

investigate is how much are humans influenced by the language of images. Social media trends

and technology advancements have had an intense impact on how humans live out their daily

lives, but what effect does this constantly changing digital world have on human

communication? Some argue that in such a fast pace world we want to acquire data quickly

without spending much of our day having to think, and we have trained our brains to process

information quicker than ever before (Sehlhorst, 2006). While some argue video advertisements

are more engaging because of the visual and auditory aspects, symbolism and signs have become

on the rise through the use of emoticons and slang, allowing advertisers to post graphics that

send a quick message to the receiver. The argument can be continued by mentioning that

“Advertising content needs to do two things — engage and persuade. Ads traditionally spent

more time doing the latter — in the pre-internet era, the main way people accessed information

about new products or brands was through TV advertisements, so they were willing to pay

sustained attention to promotional or informational content. With the ubiquity of on-demand

information, that’s no longer the case; in general today’s consumers will pay significantly more

attention to content designed to entertain them” (Teixeira, 2015). This study will gain insight as

to what forms of visual communication influence different ages groups and test how people react

to certain messages through the use of graphics that contain signs, symbols, and metaphors. This
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study will also answer the question of which mode of communication humans prefer and which

form of communication they are more skilled at.

The larger population that I wish to study with is college students. I would gather my

sample from convenience sampling, along with simple random sampling. My convenience

sample would be students at Kennesaw State University because they are close geographically

and I would be able to gather more participants because of my involvement in various

organizations. From there I would separate people into four groups of categorical data: freshman,

sophomore, junior, and senior. From each of these sampling frames, I would assign each person

a number and randomly select from these numbers in order to be inclusive. I would have 25

people chosen within each of these groups in order to have a sample of 100 to work with. Since I

am a student at Kennesaw State University involving a study with human subjects, I would need

to have an IRB study approval from Kennesaw. I would have informed consent from each of the

participants and explain that there are no forms of deception within my study, but they will need

willing to view media that contains mature content rated 17 and up. I would keep participation

results anonymous. In this study, I would offer participants of each group to be entered into a

raffle to win a $50 gift certificate to participating KSU bookstores as an incentive to get

involvement. I would work with the school to possibly obtain a discount for these gift cards, but

I would pay for this expense out of pocket, totaling an incentive cost of about $200 before any

possible discounts.

To recruit for this study, I would start by messaging members of Greek life organizations

because I have access to hundreds of members in Greek life organizations here a Kennesaw. I

would also ask the school if I could put up flyers that explain the study and the incentive to get

involvement from outside of Greek life organizations. This study would measure how influenced
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participants are after looking at two different prompts. For this study, I would conduct this

research in person. I would have a QR code that has an online advertising poster. The poster

would have the image of the product along with different forms of visual communication such as

signs, symbolism, and metaphors dispersed throughout the advertisement. The contents of the

prompt could be any type of advertisement, but for this example, I will use the advertisement of

an Old Spice poster. I would allow them about a minute to look over the advertising prompt.

After this, I would have each group watch the video version of the advertisement, so for this

example, I would let them watch an Old Spice commercial that is marketing the same product

that was in the poster version of the advertisement. Then I would send them all a Google survey

form that asked them questions about how influenced they were by either of the prompts shown.

From this, I would be able to compare the information on how different forms of visual media

produce various responses, and what type of advertisement had a more impactful influence.

To measure the student’s responses in a way that would generate a mean of opinionated

data that would be easy to gather and draw conclusions for the quantitative data being researched

through continuous interval data, I would use a five-point Likert-type scale. This scale would

allow the students to express an opinion, or to be neutral if they so choose. The scale would be

arranged as such: (1) Strongly disagree; (2) Disagree; (3) Neither agree nor disagree; (4) Agree;

(5) Strongly agree. The survey would ask questions such as, “I prefer video advertisements over

reading an advertisement” or, “I could picture myself buying this product after watching/reading

the prompt” and they would respond according to the above measurements.

From this, I would take the results and compare the differences in each of the responses. I

would be able to compare each of the groups with what style of advertisement they preferred,

and then I would take the mean answer of all four of the groups to decide which mode of
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advertisement was most effective. I think the strength of this study plan is that it allows me to see

how different age groups view advertisements. Another strength is that Google surveys are easy

and quick to analyze, so this process would be very efficient. I think this would answer my

hypothesis that humans are influenced by visual communication in different ways based on age

exposure to media. Even though this plan might be efficient in gathering this type of data, I could

see potential limitations. There is the possibility of Simpson’s Paradox because of the possibility

of lurking variables. These variables could range from the mood of the participant that day, to the

education level of participants, and possible cases of visual or auditory impairments. These could

very easily influence the outcome of the data. These questions are also open-ended, and although

they can generate a mean response, the student may not have any opinion on their preferences. If

this were to be a trend for the majority of the participants, then the mean would be that there is

no preference for either video or graphic advertisements. I think for future direction, there could

be more extensive research done beyond surveys, and possibly more experimental by measuring

heart rate and other senses in response to visual communication. I feel like this line of research is

very new due to the advancement of technology, so the opportunities I could explore range from

why we are so influenced by the language of images to what our brains are now trained to enjoy

based on television and other cinematic works.

Resources

‌Sehlhorst, S. (2006). Symbolism and Communication | Tyner Blain.

https://tynerblain.com/blog/2006/02/12/symbolism-and-communication/

Teixeira, T. (2015, October 14). When People Pay Attention to Video Ads and Why. Harvard

Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/10/when-people-pay-attention-to-video-ads-and-

why