So you wanna know about visual rhetoric?

 You've come to the right place.

This article intends to teach those of you interested in analyzing imagery, and the professions associated with rhetoric in that sense. We'll also discuss who is using this, and how they're doing it while working in their field. So let's dive in, shall we?

The first thing to understand is what rhetoric is. I believe it to be the deliberate use of a certain language in a persuasive manner, literally the tools of persuasion in an argument, and let's be clear: an argument is not always a bad thing. Using rhetoric in a debate is helpful, but you also may be finding yourself using it when discussing your opinion on a national policy or your view on a federal case.

 Although typically it is used in the sense of text, rhetoric can also be used to dissect an image down to it's bare essentials by moving through these two categories. Not all apply, but some do.

Under the modes of proof are three words Aristotle used: ethos, pathos and logos.

Ethos is representation of the self. Using ethos demonstrates what you know, what you have educated yourself about, your values and morals or lack thereof. When using ethos, you might have an established ethos (meaning you are already well known). You may have to develop an ethos for your audiences by showing them that you have good will toward them; you and your information are there to benefit them. It has also been defined as “earning the trust of the person receiving the message.”

Pathos is used when you appeal to your audiences emotions by calling on events that effect them. Perhaps while discussing the brutality of bullying homosexual youth, you tell your audience about recent suicides in their area, maybe people from their high school. Some of the key things in this hypothetical situation are the approximation to your audience: recent things, in places close to them, in places that are relative to who they are. For instance, they may have their own children in the same high school or live down the street from this suicide victim's family.

Logos is the logical approach, where one would use relevant and legitimate research to emphasize your point, whatever that may be. Statistics, quotes and appropriately accredited surveys are often used. [In the case of visual rhetoric, this may not be necessary.]

It could be argued that the history of visual rhetoric is hard to trace, but imagine that it has as long of lines as textual and oral rhetoric do; it is simply a different sensory perspective. Visual rhetoric  is different from graphic design. In this field, it “emphasizes images as sensory expressions of cultural meaning” as opposed to purely aesthetic consideration. 

Visual rhetoric has been used in a variety of academic fields; art history, linguistics (the scientific study of human language), semiotics (the study of signs and symbols), business and marketing and cultural studies. Rhetoricians are usually analyzing paintings, sculptures, advertisements, movies, architecture, newspaper ads and photographs, even videogames!

To narrow down how rhetoric is used under visual, rhetoric, we’ll take a look at Charles Kostelnick and David Robert’s six tools that they outlined in their book: Designing Visual Language: Strategies for Professional Communicators for dissecting visual images. These guidelines are very similar to another set of techniques under rhetoric, “the canons of rhetoric” (invention [of argument through research], arrangement [of argument to convey information and persuasion], memory, delivery [tone, gestures, ect] and style).

                Arrangement: “the organization of visual elements so that readers can see their structure.”

                Emphasis: “making certain parts more prominent to others by changing its size, shape, color, ect.”

                Clarity: “helps the reader to ‘decode’ the message, to understand it quickly and completely.”

                Conciseness: “generating designs that are completely appropriate to succinct [consolidate] to a particular situation”

                Tone: “tone reveals the authors/designers attitude toward the subject matter”

                Ethos: “earning the trust of the person receiving the message”.

For more information on how visual rhetoric is, and what visual rhetoric is used for, visit Perdue Online Writing lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/691/01/ .To see it in use, visit http://thesocietypages.org/ > and their linked site Sociological Images, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/ to see visual rhetoric in action!