2. Topics
• Define: Visual Rhetoric
• Characteristics of Visual Rhetoric
• Rhetorical Figures
• The Model of Visual Rhetoric
• The Genre of Photojournalism
3. Classical rhetoric as applied to arguments
was concerned with the means of giving the
greatest possible persuasive power to the
written or spoken word.
Pictures can also, like words be used to pose
arguments, raise questions, create fictions,
present metaphors, or even mount a critique
and are not intended as faithful copies of
reality.
7. Sonja K. Foss generally defined
visual rhetoric as the study of the
use of visual symbols to influence
and manage meanings.
8. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion and gives
possibilities to the designer to construct
appropriate messages.
The purpose of rhetoric is the efficient use
of language in order to shape attitudes in
others and influence their behavior.
It operates on the basis of logical and esthetic
modes to affect interaction in both a rational
and an emotional way.
10. Not every visual object is visual rhetoric.
What turns a visual object into a
communicative artifact—a symbol that
communicates and can be studied as
rhetoric—is the presence of three
characteristics.
11. 3 Characteristics of Visual Rhetoric
• Symbolic Action
To qualify as visual rhetoric, an image must go beyond serving
as a sign, however, and be symbolic, with that image only
indirectly connected to its referent.
• Human Intervention
Visual rhetoric requires human action in the process of
creation and in the process of interpretation.
• Presence of an Audience
Visual elements are arranged and modified by a rhetor
not simply for self-expression but also for communication
with an audience.
14. Relation
1. Identity: is created when the significance between two
elements is identical
2. Similarity: there is at least one significant relation in form or
content between two elements
3. Difference: the relation between two elements differ totally,
one element is totally different than the other
4. Opposition: at least one relation between two elements in
form or content are opposed
5. False homology: two elements are compared, however there
is no resemblance in reality between the elements, like a
paradox
15. Rhetorical Operation
• Addition: One or more elements are added to the proposition
(repetition is seen as addition of identical elements)
• Suppression: One or more elements of the proposition are
suppressed, and two derived operations:
1. Substitution is analyzed as a suppression followed by an
addition: an element is suppressed in order to be
replaced by another
2. Exchange includes two reciprocal substitutions: two
elements of the proposition are permutated
16. Metonymy: A meaning indicated verbally is set in relation to another
meaning, based on a thematic connection.
23. Meaning Operation
Complexity
Connection Similiarity Opposition
❶
Visual Structure
Juxtaposition
Fusion ❷
more
Replacement ❸
Richiness more
24. • Juxta-position: two unities of significance
(two images or signs) stand next to each
other
• Fusion: two elements of significance are
combined
• Replacement: one element is exchanged
for another
