Visual rhetoric

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. 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. Also, visual rhetoric involves how writers arrange segments of a visual text on the page. In addition, visual rhetoric involves the selection of fonts, contrasting colors, and graphs, among other elements, to shape a visual rhetoric text. One vital component of visual rhetoric is analyzing the visual text. The interactional and commonly hybrid nature of cyberspaces that usually mixes print text and visual images enable 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. 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 so the viewer can understand its tenor. Viewers can break the text into smaller parts and share perspectives to reach its meaning. 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 a 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. The power of imagery, iconic photographs, for instance, can potentially generate actions in a global scale. Rhetorical choices carry great significance that surpass reinforcement of the written text.  Each choice, font, color, or layout, represents a different message that the author wants to portray for the audience. Visual rhetoric emphasizes images as sensory expressions of cultural and contextual meaning, as opposed to purely aesthetic consideration. Linguists and other researchers often define rhetoric through the well-known five canons of rhetoric. Over time, this definition has evolved, expanded, and raised serious debate as new digital communication channels have developed.

In his book Elements of Criticism, rhetorician Lord Kames (also known as Henry Home) laid the groundwork for later rhetoricians by taking the controversial stance of including visual art in his theory of criticism. Kames argued many of the same points as other Enlightenment scholars—mainly that art was beneficial to the public—and worthy of note and praise—if it was encouraging a moral improvement of its audience.

In 1977, French theorist Roland Barthes brought to light a new way to evaluate other communication media, showing the relevance of traditional rhetorical theories to the still photographic medium. Barthes explained visual rhetoric generally as the implied and interpreted messages from the work, yet these bigger messages often extend beyond the initial superficial interpretation. Although similar in nature, one striking difference between visual and classical rhetoric is the newfound outlook on Aristotle's original canons. Linda Scott created a newfound audience by constructing new cannons exclusive to visual rhetoric. The function, or purpose, of an image may be to evoke a certain emotion. In images, meanings are created by the layout and spatial positions of these elements. Visual rhetorical images can be categorized into two dimensions: meaning operation and visual structure.

Analysis terminology

Rhetorical critics have borrowed analysis terminology from C.S. Peirce to accomplish direct analysis of visual messages. Icon (or iconic signs), index (or indexical signs), and symbol (or symbolic signs) are three basic categories of recognizable characteristics of visual messages. Icons, or iconic signs, are recognized based on resemblance to known elements or items (e.g., one's ID photo on a company badge). Indexes, or indexical signs, are recognized based on an understanding of a visual trace, imprint, or element that signals prior activity, or process, the agent of which is no longer visible (e.g., tire tracks in the sand). Symbols, or symbolic signs, are recognized only on the basis of a shared, learned code of visual signs (e.g., a Mercedes-Benz logo, or any printed word in any written language). These three types of visual signs, individually or in combination, make up the visual design elements of nearly all visual messages.

Modern application

Visual images have always played a role in communication; however, recent technological advancements have enabled users to produce and share images on a mass scale. The mass communication of images has made spread of news and information a much quicker process. As a result, certain images may go "viral," meaning they have been shared and seen by a large audience and have attracted mainstream media attention. Images are utilized in a variety of ways for a number of purposes. From business to art to entertainment, the versatility of images in popular culture has some scholars arguing that words will eventually become outdated.

Analyzing the design choices of an image

Emphasis: search for the stress of the image; where does the author/artist want the audience's attention to go?
Contrast: search for the element that stands out in the image; where is the emphasis in the image?
Color: helps the audience figure out the emphasis of an image. Why were certain colors used in this image? What does the choice of these colors tell us?
Organization: the arrangement of elements that make the image a whole. How is the image organized? What does the image's organization tell the audience?
Alignment: the line up of the image. How does the image's alignment affect how the audience's eyes view it?
Proximity: the space used (or not used) in an image. How close (or not so close) are the elements portrayed in the image? What meaning does that make?

These techniques are skills learned and used by visual communication designers today, such as in advertising. Each of these methods of appeal has the ability to influence its audience in different ways. Methods of appeal can also be combined to strengthen the underlying message.

Visual literacy

Visual literacy is the ability to read, analyze, and evoke meaning from visual text through the means of visual grammar. Visual Communication Designers depend on their audience having visual literacy to comprehend their outputted materials.

Visual ethics

Research has shown that there are ethical implications to the presentation of visuals. "Visuals present the risk of, all too easily, swaying their audiences in an unethical fashion." Advances in technology have made it easier to manipulate and distort visuals.

Advertisers know that consumers can associate one thing with another; therefore, when an ad shows two things that seem different, they know the consumer will find a connection between them. Advertisers also find ways to make sure that the consumer creates a positive association between what they are selling and whatever they are associating their product with. According to scholar David Hanauer, graffiti achieves three functions; the first is to allow marginalized texts to participate in the public discourse, the second is that graffiti serves the purpose of openly expressing "controversial contents", and the third is to allow "marginal groups to the possibility of expressing themselves publicly." Hanauer also wrote that graffiti has been shown to embody personal psychological content. Gross and Gross indicated that graffiti is capable of serving a rhetorical purpose. Within a more modern context, Wiens' (2014) research showed that graffiti can be considered an alternative way of creating rhetorical meaning for issues such as homelessness. Furthermore, according to Ley and Cybriwsky graffiti can be an expression of territory, especially within the context of gangs. This form of visual rhetoric is meant to communicate meaning to anyone who so happens to see it, and due to its long history and prevalence, several styles and techniques have emerged to capture the attention of an audience. Gang members may send messages to rival gangs, or mark their territory with the use of graffiti and, in some cases, rivals will cross out a rival gang’s graffiti or mark over it with threatening phrases, such as RIP. Tags, a form of graffiti, are stylized signatures or logos unique to each graffiti writer. These tags are used by contemporary graffiti writers to distinguish signatures that identify the individuals who write them. Since its appearance thirty-five years ago, tagging has become a communication found in many cities around the world to say when someone was at that place.

Text

While visual rhetoric is usually applied to denote the non-textual artifacts, the use and presentation of words is still critical to understanding the visual argument as a whole. Beyond how a message is conveyed, the presentation of that message encompasses the study and practice of typography. Professionals in fields from graphic design to book publishing make deliberate choices about how a typeface looks, including but not limited to concerns of functionality, emotional evocations, and cultural context.

thumb|An example of a simple meme. Identifiable symbols fill gaps in meaning where text is absent.

Memes

Though a relatively new way of using images, visual Internet memes are one of the more pervasive forms of visual rhetoric. Visual memes represent a genre of visual communication that often combines images and text to create meaning. Visual memes can be understood through visual rhetoric, which "combines elements of the semiotic and discursive approaches to analyze the persuasive elements of visual texts." Furthermore, memes fit into this rhetorical category because of their persuasive nature and their ability "to draw viewers into the argument's construction via the viewer's cognitive role in completing "visual enthymemes" to fill in the unstated premise." The visual portion of the meme is a part of its multimodal grammar, allowing a person to decode the text through "cultural codes" that contextualize the image to construct meaning. Because of what is unstated, memetic images can hold multiple interpretations. As groups create and share a specific meme template what is unstated becomes a fixed reading with "novel expression". Juxtaposition frames clashing visual elements in order to "deepen the ridicule" with a large incongruity or diminishes the original contrast by taking the visual object into a more fitting situation.

According to a 2013 study by Bauckhage, et al., the temporal nature of most memes and their "hype cycles" of popularity are in line with the behavior of a typical fad and suggest that after they proliferate and become mainstream, memes quickly lose their appeal and popularity. Once it has lost its appeal, a meme is pronounced "dead" to signify its overuse or mainstream appearance. A 2015 study by Mazambani et al. concluded that other factors of influence in meme spread within an online community include how relevant a meme is to the "topic focus" or theme of the online community as well as whether the posting user is in a position of power within an online setting. Memes that are consistent with a group's theme and memes that originate from lower-status members within the group spread faster than memes that are inconsistent and are created by members of a group that are in positions of power.

References

External links

Visual Rhetoric in Social Campaigns
viz.: Rhetoric, Visual Culture, Pedagogy
Semiotics for Beginners
Pictorial Semiotics