Meaningful Emoji: A Preliminary Exploratory Study of Graphic Symbols Usage for Health Communication

Abstract: Emoji have become an important component of visual language since they were officially introduced into the Unicode Character Database in 2010 and have become commonplace in most people's lives. These graphic symbols were popularly used worldwide due to their widespread use on social media platforms. More and more researchers have also used emoji as stimulus cues to explore the relationship between emotions and attitude in the fields of communication, online behavior, health, food safety, and other field of study. Gboard, a virtual keyboard developed by Google, announced Emoji Kitchen in 2020 for Android users, and now also open to iOS users, and even launched a web version for computer users to use. Emoji Kitchen is a special feature that allows users to combine two different emoji symbols into brand-new ones. By using Emoji Kitchen as a generator tool, this study aims to investigate what key visual elements to replenish the emoji items to meet users' communication needs, particularly in the health context. This study firstly presumes emoji as elements of visual language to represent a noun, a verb, and an interjection. Secondly, an exploratory investigation was conducted to test how people make sense of the relationship between multiple emoji, within which to demonstrate how various arrangements of emoji affect the semantic meanings. Results show that current standardized and widely used emoji are inadequate for users to express freely online in the context of health issues. What to choose and how to use the emoji when people express their emotions in the context of health were defined. The consensus in visual preferences was initially discovered. Our previous studies have proved that emoji are highly capable of promoting more comprehensible and persuasive information communication, as well as improving reading speed. This study finds further details about how emoji play roles as vital components of visual language in communication.

Keywords: Emoji, Graphic Symbols, Health Communication, Social Media, Visual Language, Health Information

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004644

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