Visual rhetoric

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Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through visual elements such as images, typography, and texts. Visual rhetoric encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning.[1] Drawing on techniques from semiotics and rhetorical analysis, visual rhetoric expands on visual literacy as it examines the structure of an image with the focus on its persuasive effects on an audience.[1]

Although visual rhetoric also involves typography and other texts, it concentrates mainly on the use of images or visual texts. Using images is central to visual rhetoric because these visuals help in either forming the case an image alone wants to convey, or arguing the point that a writer formulates, in the case of a multimodal text which combines image and written text, for example. Visual rhetoric has gained more notoriety as more recent scholarly work started exploring alternative media forms that include graphics, screen design, and other hybrid visual representations that does not privilege print culture and conventions.[2] Also, visual rhetoric involves how writers arrange segments of a visual text on the page. In addition to that, visual rhetoric involves the selection of different fonts, contrastive colors, and graphs, among other elements, to shape a visual rhetoric text. One vital component of visual rhetoric is analyzing the visual text.[3] The interactional and commonly hybrid nature of cyber spaces that usually mixes print text and visual images unable some detachment of them as isolated constructs, and scholarship has claimed that especially in virtual spaces where print text and visuals are usually combined, there is no place either for emphasizing one mode over another.[4] One way of analyzing a visual text is to look for its significant meaning.

Simply put, the meaning should be deeper than the literal sense that a visual text holds. One way to analyze a visual text is to dissect it in order for the viewer to understand its tenor. Viewers can break the text into smaller parts and share perspectives to reach its meaning.[5] In analyzing a text that includes an image of the bald eagle, as the main body of the visual text, questions of representation and connotation come into play. Analyzing a text that includes a photo, painting, or even cartoon of the bold eagle along with written words, would bring to mind the conceptions of strength and freedom, rather than the conception of merely a bird.

This includes an understanding of the creative and rhetorical choices made with coloring, shaping, and object placement.[6] The power of imagery, iconic photographs, for instance, can potentially generate actions in a global scale.[7] Rhetorical choices carry great significance that surpass reinforcement of the written text.  Each choice, be font, color, layout, represents a different message that author wants to portray for the audience.[8] Visual rhetoric emphasizes images as sensory expressions of cultural and contextual meaning, as opposed to purely aesthetic consideration.[9] Analyzing visuals and their power to convey messages is central to incorporating visual rhetoric within the digital era as nuances of choices regarding audience, purpose and genre can be analyzed within a single frame and the rationale behind designers’ rhetorical choices can be revealed and analyzed by how the elements of visuals play out altogether. Visual rhetoric has been approached and applied in a variety of academic fields including art history, linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies, business and technical communication, speech communication, and classical rhetoric. Visual rhetoric seeks to develop rhetorical theory in a way that is more comprehensive and inclusive with regard to images and their interpretations.[10]

  1. ^ a b Danesi, Marcel (2017). "Visual Rhetoric and Semiotic". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.43. ISBN 978-0-19-022861-3.
  2. ^ Hocks, Mary E. (2003). "Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments". College Composition and Communication. 54 (4): 629–656. doi:10.2307/3594188. JSTOR 3594188. ProQuest 220689156.
  3. ^ "Visual Rhetoric Slide Presentation // Purdue Writing Lab". Purdue Writing Lab. Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  4. ^ Gatta, Oriana (Fall 2013). "English 3135: Visual Rhetoric". Composition Studies. 41 (2): 78–86, 139. ProQuest 1509802231.
  5. ^ "Analyzing Visual Documents // Purdue Writing Lab". Purdue Writing Lab. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  6. ^ "Visual Rhetoric: Overview". Purdue Online Writing Lab. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  7. ^ Mortensen, Mette; Allan, Stuart; Peters, Chris (1 November 2017). "The Iconic Image in a Digital Age: Editorial Mediations over the Alan Kurdi Photographs". Nordicom Review. 38 (s2): 71–86. doi:10.1515/nor-2017-0415. S2CID 28840942. Gale A625243398 ProQuest 2344530532.
  8. ^ Kress, Gunther; Selander, Staffan (October 2012). "Multimodal design, learning and cultures of recognition". The Internet and Higher Education. 15 (4): 265–268. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.12.003.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kress1996 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Foss2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).