Chapter 31: Analyzing Visual Rhetoric
According to the Wikibook Visual Rhetoric, rhetoric is the art of persuasion using language. Classical philosophers used rhetorical appeals in their speeches to persuade people to their point of view. In the realm of visual rhetoric, the viewer may analyze how images communicate and persuade.
“Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing [discovering] in any given case the available [appropriate] means of persuasion”
– Aristotle, qtd. in Bizzell 160
The art of rhetoric uses style and many different formulas to make the most pertinent argument to convince their audience. The classical sophist, Gorgias, said rhetoric had the power to create images in a person’s mind. Quintilian also believed that rhetoric presented images into people’s minds (Blakesley 2). Visual rhetoric is actually representations and images designed to convince people instead of, or in addition to, using words.
“The duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply Reason to Imagination for the better moving of the will”
– Bacon, qtd. in Bizzell 629
Academics only began to rhetorically analyze images in the late 1900s when scholars recognized the increasing centrality of visual elements in contemporary culture, even though imagery has been around since cave people were drawing on cave walls. Images today are used in advertisements, school books, movies, magazines, and paintings.
We live in a visual world. The definition of visual rhetoric depends upon the scholar, but it can be any range of the items listed above. In Defining Visual Images, the authors, Charles Hill and Marguerite Helmers, explain that visual rhetoric is “understanding how images… work upon readers” (2). There are many categories to look at when determining this impression or impact.
One aspect of visual rhetoric is intertextuality. This is how one image relates to another image. Are there similarities? Is it a certain type of image, advertisement, family photo? This is important because the more images that are similar, the more symbols our society comes to know, and the study of semiotics is born, which can be defined as the study of signs, symbols, the interpretations of each. The reason that images can mean something or create emotion in viewers is because of semiotics. According to Scholarly Community Encyclopedia, “Semiotic theory is defined as a theory that seeks to describe the rhetorical significance of sign-making. The central idea of the theory is that a sign does not exist outside of a contextual experience, but it only exists in relation to other signs, objects, and entities.” Intertextuality is commonly present in pop culture, media, and advertising.
Objects can take on a symbolic meaning; images can represent concepts known to our culture when they have a common meaning throughout our society. One example is the American flag. The American flag in an image, at least in America, stands for patriotism.
Psychology must also be looked at when studying images. Trying