Rhetoric & Visual Arguments

Transcription

1 Rhetoric & Visual Arguments

2 Analyzing Visual Arguments Visual arguments use images to engage viewers and persuade them to accept a particular idea or point of view. Advertisements are only one type of visual argument. Any argument, visual or verbal, contains 3 main elements: Claims Evidence Assumptions What is the claim in the following video? How effective is the visual argument?

3 Verbal Claims vs. Contextual Claims A sign or wording in a photograph makes a claim. However, the claim made by the photograph itself may be more complex. Thus, you need to consider a visual claim in context. Think critically about the image and the claims it may be making. Image claims often require interpretation and analysis. And those interpretations and analyses are often subjective.

4 Testing Claims Claims are declarative statements that are either true or false, but not both. An argument is a series of claims one of which is the conclusion or proposition you are using as the main thrust of your argument. In written argument, the proposition is usually stated explicitly as a thesis statement or research hypothesis. However, in visual arguments, the central claim and subclaims are often implicit.

5 Weighing Evidence Visual arguments use several types of evidence to support their claims. Again, the evidence may be implicit or explicit. They may use facts, examples, expert opinions, and appeals to beliefs or needs to support their claim/s. Good analysis of this ad by the person who created it

6 Analyzing Visual Arguments How does the design of the visual enhance or hinder the argument? What emotional appeals does the argument elicit, and how? What ethical appeals make the visual argument credible? Does it call on any authorities or symbols to establish character or credibility? How does the visual argument make logical appeals? Do words and images work together to create a logical cause-effect relationship? How are any examples used? What claim/s does the visual argument make? What reasons are attached to the claim, and how well are they supported by evidence? What assumptions/s underlie the claim and the reasons?

7 Reading Photographs Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange: Florence Owens Thompson, 32, a povertystricken migrant mother with three young children, gazes off into the distance. This photograph, commissioned by the FSA, came to symbolize the Great Depression for many Americans.

8 Is a scene or situation depicted? If so, study details, research history. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

9 Identify each figure in the photo. What is the purpose? What is the situation? September 4, Elizabeth Eckard

10 What details of scene or person(s) carry significance? March on the Pentagon on October 21st 1967.

11 How does the photo make you feel? The original photo received the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1969 under the name Saigon Execution. Nowadays it is often captioned as General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon. Taken by Eddie Adams.

12 Food for thought: The previous photo won Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, though he was later said to have regretted its impact. The image became an anti-war icon. Concerning Loan and his famous photograph, Adams wrote in Time: The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, "What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"

13 Reading Political Cartoons

14 What scene is being depicted? (Identify situation).

15 Identify each of the figures in the cartoon. What is the significance of the moment?

16 Who speaks the lines?

17 What is the cartoon s general subject? The point/the claim/the Thesis.

18 Reading Advertisements

19 What product/service is being sold?

20 Who is the targeted audience?

21 What is the ad s primary strategy?

22 Does the ad use rhetorical strategies? (humor, understatement, irony)

23 What is the relation b/w the visuals and the print?

24 What is the ad s overall visual impression? Consider both images and colors used.

25 What does being visual add to arguments? [The visual] adds drama and force of a much greater order. Beyond that it can use such devices as references to cultural icons and other kinds of symbolism, dramatization and narrative to make a powerfully compelling case for its conclusion. The visual has an immediacy, a verisimilitude, and a concreteness that help influence acceptance and that are not available to the verbal. When argument is visual, it is, above all, visual rhetoric. Blair, J. Anthony. The Rhetoric of Visual Arguments. Groundwork in the Theory of Argumentation: Argumentation Library Volume 21, (2012)