Visual Rhetoric

The definition of visual rhetoric is something that hasn’t come easily to many people. There have been debates regarding the definition and what the term actually entails. Doug Eyman uses the ideas of others as well as his own to formulate what visual rhetoric means and what it includes. It is heavily dependent on the audience and how they perceive an image or design and what it means to them—there’s a deeper meaning and something below the surface level. Curtis Newbold adds to this idea by commenting on the rhetoric and how it correlates to how persuaded an audience is by the things that they see. He includes a cool graphic that highlights varying inputs and how it eventually connects to the brain.

Example of Visual Rhetoric

Visual rhetoric employs the use of images and varying design elements in order to convey a point that is accurately communicated to a selected audience. These representations of the rhetoric are used to evoke a response from those who understand the displayed image. For example, there is a meme of SpongeBob where he leans forward and makes a specific face. This is the ‘Mocking SpongeBob’ meme. It’s been used by people to show when someone is being annoying and to show that they are being mocked. Essentially their words don’t matter and the listener could care less. This meme is visual rhetoric example because an audience of people understands the image and it represents something to them. If someone who didn’t understand the image came into contact with it, they might not understand it and disregard it.

Perception of Visual Rhetoric

I think that this discussion is similar to the one I had in my previous blog post regarding text. I didn’t properly understand what visual rhetoric was until reading into it and exploring the universe of what it meant. Visual rhetoric is all about the portrayal of something visual and the way that a certain audience interprets it.