Effect of Visual Images on Digital Communication: Empirical Research Review

Abstract

As mobile messengers gain popularity, visual images affect digital communication, leading to new interaction patterns. This review sums up scientific experience in describing digital communication facilitated by emoji and memes. The review covered scientific articles that reported empirical research on visual communication in digital environment in such open research databases as CyberLeninka, PubMed, Google Scholar, eLibrary, and ResearchGate in 2019–2024. The current rise in visual communication tools seems to reflect the general visual shift in modern culture, associated with the changes in human psychology brought about by total digitalization. Visual communication tools have a high information capacity, which hinders their interpretation, thus modifying the complex of individual and socio-psychological characteristics of interlocutors in an attempt to ensure mutual understanding. The review can be used to improve digital communication that employs alternative communication tools.