Effective communication for water resilient communities: A conceptual framework

Abstract

Communication campaigns to promote the importance of water as a vital but limited resource have evolved in many ways. Nowadays, the resources, techniques and skills to deliver effective communication campaigns are far greater than ever before. Over the past decades, there has been a significant body of research towards improving water conservation campaign communication but with limited success in promoting more resilient behaviours on behalf of water consumers. While the media and technology have rapidly evolved and awareness among consumers may have increased, this has not been sufficient to make the communication effective in changing behaviour. Communications to promote resilience among consumers need to reach a wide audience, capture audiences’ attention, build awareness and motivate water consumers to consume water sustainably. This represents a subject in need of further theoretical and conceptual investigation. This research reviews various approaches to effective communication and through a synthesis of the concepts aims to present a new, socio-psychological water conservation conceptual framework. The present conceptual framework integrates emotional appeal, for use on social media platforms and in order to foster more water resilient communities. This framework represents a potentially major contribution in providing guidelines for water sectors to deliver effective video communications on social media platforms.