Ever heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words?” Pictures have the ability to tell stories without any words on a page. This alone ties into the concept of visual rhetoric. According to Eyman, visual rhetoric does not have a set definition, making it difficult to understand it. His study mainly focused on how it tied into the concept of digital literacy. By making those connections, we can understand where to find examples of visual rhetoric within digital rhetoric projects.
When you really think about it, visuals are all around us, both digital and printed. Even when given the same visual by two individuals, both can take the same image in completely different ways. Visuals are meant to be up for interpretation. That alone is the amazing thing about their incorporation into our everyday lives.
Visual Rhetoric & Emojis
Nowadays, emojis are used within our everyday lives. We typically tend to communicate best through using things like emojis. Emojis allow us to convey messages to whoever we are texting without any words being spoken. For example, someone could send the emoji with the heart eyes and no other words with it. In addition, this gives the receiver an idea that the person likes what they see.
Using emojis are a great example of a visual that can be interpreted in so many different ways. One very common emoji that can be taken two totally different ways is the crying one. When it comes to my personal use of it, I tend to use it whenever someone says something really funny to me. I use the crying effect to show the receiver that whatever it is they said was very funny to me. Also, on the other hand, many people using the crying emoji to show that they are actually sad. This can be very confusing to receivers who may not have a shared understanding of what the emoji means to them. This alone can make the message unclear and leave a grey area within the conversation.
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