This paper aims to understand the visual and textual rhetorical strategies used in NGO annual reports to build organizational legitimacy.
A single case study was conducted on the NGO Biodiversity (KEHATI). Barthes's semiotic and Aristotle's rhetoric theories were used to analyze the photographs and images, together with the accompanying text, in the organization's annual reports.
KEHATI predominantly uses culturally and aesthetically-coded visual rhetorical strategies, as well as textual strategies based on ethos and pathos, to enhance the persuasiveness and effectiveness of its messages. The organization chose symbolic messages: organizational identity, good governance, program success and stakeholder trust, to share meaning, create empathy and demonstrate credibility in order to build organizational legitimacy. The rhetoric of ethos in the visual messages of good governance and stakeholder trust forms KEHATI's moral compass, grounded in practical wisdom and good intentions for the welfare of humanity and nature.
Single case studies cannot be generalized to other NGO cases.
The integration of Barthes's semiotic and Aristotle's rhetoric theories provides a new theoretical framework for understanding NGOs' visual accountability to both humans and non-humans. The rhetoric of the text, representing a “virtue anchor”, leads readers to accept the KEHATI’s benevolent ideology as essential to the survival of humans and the natural world.
