Older Version: Analyzing Visual Arguments

What is a visual argument?

Many of the arguments that bombard us daily aren’t textual, and we often don’t even register them as arguments. Drive along the freeway or leaf through a magazine, and we are bombarded by visual arguments in the form of advertisements, instructions, PSAs, and infographics. Images, unlike text, can hit us immediately, right in the gut, because our minds process and respond to images much faster than they process language. Consequently, many advertisements rely on non-rational appeals such as scare tactics, lifestyle promises, allusions to sexuality or status, satire, and FOMO to sell their claims. Consider the image below, which endeavors, without text, to raise awareness about the dangers of smoking cigarettes (fig. 1):

Figure 1 makes an argument in purely visual terms, and relies on blunt, recognizable images, one common, one mythical, juxtaposed in a surprising and uncanny way. An oversized cigarette on a black background already plays with our expectations about scale. This object is huge, and unanchored to anything else around it, seeming to float in space. The background is pure and textureless black, providing no refuge for the eye. The cigarette, burned more than halfway down with a long ash hanging off its end, terminates in the grim reaper as an extension of the ash, moving upward with the smoke. The figure of the reaper is facing toward the butt of the cigarette, where the implied smoker’s face would be. Because images strike our brain with non-rational appeals almost instantaneously (in the above case by conceptually linking smoking with death), they operate faster than text alone, and with more emotional impact. If we created an argument map for this image, it might look like this:

All without using a single word. But the image evokes a much stronger and more visceral reaction than the claim/reason pair. When images are paired with text, they often combine rational and non-rational appeals and mix explicit or obvious images with implicit or encoded messaging. Text can be used to reinforce the message of the image. While images often rely on feelings and associations, a caption can articulate the logic of the argument. Let’s look at an image that combines text and images, playing with denotation and connotation:

Like the smoking ad, this image plays with scale, but it doesn’t use scare tactics (after all, its purpose is much more encouraging since it is asking us to adopt a behavior rather than discontinue one). A doctor’s pill bottle rests on a soothing peach background (with a drop shadow beneath it, so unlike the cigarette ad we get a sense that this bottle exists in three-dimensional space). Inside the pill bottle, however, there is a tiny chair and cushion like we might find in a living room. This image alone doesn’t provide enough context for us to interpret it, however, and requires the text below it, which is laid out like the label on a pill bottle. The text reads: “PRESCRIPTION: STAY AT HOME” and beneath that, “Disease: Covid-19 / Patient Name: Everyone / Take: Daily.” The image and text together generate an interesting juxtaposition of two ideas—a doctor’s orders on the one hand and the comfort of home on the other. An argument map of the visual argument might look like this:

The argument is thus relatively sophisticated given how few elements it contains, and relies on our associations with the images it combines. A pill bottle might generate alarm since it suggests the hazards of ill-health, but it is paired with a symbol of home and comfort. Similarly, Covid-19 itself is likely to bring up fears of ill-health and economic instability, but the image of the chair soothes those fears too, since implied experts (doctors) are the ones recommending the course of action, inviting us to relax and wait out the duration of the disease in relative comfort.

Elements of a visual argument analysis

Given the image above, we might begin our argument analysis with a summary of the work (review Chapter 3), diving deep into how the elements work together; the way the colors, objects, people, shapes, arrangement, and tone interact with the text, if there is any. Next, we’ll take stock of our own reaction to the work. While our reaction isn’t enough for a rhetorical analysis, it is a great place to begin our analysis. The analysis should discuss the image’s ideas, its appeals to emotion, and its appeal to trust and connection (review Chapter 10). How do the visuals come together with the text to generate the argument? How are viewers supposed to react to the combination of text and images? To begin, describe, react, and analyze, as outlined below:

Description

This is your summary (review Chapter 3). Before we assess how the image affects the viewer, we need to describe what it is doing. Here we will only consider the explicit and obvious components of the image, saving interpretation of its implicit message in our analysis phase. Consider the following questions:

• Colors: What colors does the creator choose? Are the hues warm/hot (reds, oranges) or cool (blues, greens). Do they contain gradients? Do they imply depth of field or are they flat?

• Objects and shapes: What are they? How are they arranged? Do the images play with scale or catch our attention with cognitive dissonance?

• People and places: Are there recognizable people or places in the image? 

• Arrangement of elements: Where does your eye go first and where does it travel after that? Does the composition contain primarily vertical elements, horizontal elements, or diagonal elements?

• Tone: Is there an explicit tone to the piece? 

• Text: What is the relationship between the text and the image? Does the text reinforce, contradict, or complicate the image? What kinds of fonts did the author select?

Response

This is your place to respond to the image. Try to understand the cultural implications of the images and brainstorm about your personal reaction before generalizing about the image’s effect on other viewers. Below are some of the questions from 10.2 that you might ask:

• How would you describe the tone of the visuals and text? How do they establish a sense that the image is important, urgent, relevant or somehow worth the viewers’ attention?

• Does the combination of text and images appeal to particular emotional connotations to further its argument?

• Does the combination of text and images appeal to viewers’ self-interest?

• Does the combination of text and images appeal to the viewers’ sense of identity?

• Will different groups of readers likely respond to the use of images and text in different ways?

Analysis

This is where we connect the “describe” section above to the “respond” section. Go through your answers to the first set of questions and connect the elements you describe to your reaction. If you suspect the piece intended to generate a different reaction, go into the ways the material failed to get the reaction it wanted. To get you started, respond to the questions below:

• Colors: What about the color choices elicits a response in the viewer? What would change with another color scheme? Do the colors appeal to emotion, self-interest, or sense of identity?

• Objects and shapes: Why and how do the objects and shapes operate upon the viewer the way they do? How do they generate emotion, appeal to self-interest or sense of identity, or establish urgency?

• People and places: Why and how do the people and places implied or explicit in the combination of text and images generate emotion, appeal to self-interest or sense of identity, or establish urgency?

• Arrangement of elements: How do these contribute to the viewers’ reaction? Would a different arrangement convey a different sense of urgency or emotion?

• Tone: What is the overall tone of the image? How do the image’s elements contribute to that tone and what effect does the tone have on viewers?

• Text: How are the textual elements of the image working together with the image? Do they reinforce, complicate, or contradict the images and why? How do the authors of the work want viewers to react to all of the above?

The context for a visual argument

As we analyze a visual argument, it’s also useful to think about the intended audience, or group of people whom the material wants to persuade, the larger purpose of the argument, and the constraints it has to work with, or the factors limiting it (a billboard you whiz by is limited by time; a magazine ad is limited by space, a T.V. spot needs to grab your attention so you don’t tune out, etc.) 

Audience

Few arguments are created to persuade everyone. Most have an audience in mind. A company selling cleaning products won’t generally market to children; an Army recruitment drive won’t market to the elderly. Face shaving paraphernalia won’t be marketed to women. These are just a few considerations about the intended audience of a work. Below are some questions you might ask your material as you try to determine its target audience:

1. Who is the primary audience for this visual argument and who is its secondary audience (for instance a toy commercial might entice children with the product while still addressing the safety concerns for the one with the credit card)? Does the target audience have a specific age, socio-economic status, gender?

2. What values does the audience hold that the author seeks to appeal to?

3. How does the author anticipate our needs? How about our response?

4. How might the audience perceive the author’s intentions? How does the author establish good will?

5. Does the author make assumptions about the audience that damage the argument?

Purpose

Visual advertisements have perhaps the most obvious purpose: to persuade viewers to purchase the product or service being advertised. However, public service announcements, from anti-smoking ads to Smokey the Bear, have a more virtuous purpose of promoting public health and safety. Even street signs and traffic lights are visual arguments urging us to stop, go, slow down, or turn on green; their purpose is to safely conduct the flow of traffic. When you format your essay according to MLA guidelines, with 1-inch margins, double-spaced text, and a Works Cited page, that is a kind of visual argument that asks your reader to take you seriously as a scholar. That said, not every image necessarily implies an argument. A flag, for example, may be a recognizable image and may refer to a country and carry associations with national values, but taken on its own does not necessarily convey an argument. Consider the following questions when thinking about purpose:

1. What does the piece want from us? Is it asking us to purchase something, or to choose a particular brand over a competitor? Is it a call to action, or is it trying to educate?

2. Who designed the piece? Did a company or organization sponsor its creation and dissemination? What are the organization’s motives in disseminating it?

3. What are the underlying assumptions that the producers of the piece share with the audience? Are they sound?

Constraints

The constraints of a visual argument are primarily determined by its purpose, medium, and audience. The imagery featured in a magazine or billboard advertisement is at once as boundless as the advertiser’s imagination but, at the same time, limited to what can be printed in a given magazine or roadside billboard. Even the example of street signs and traffic lights, mentioned above, must be conveyed using a familiar, shared set of symbols (red for stop, green for go). One can imagine how confusing or hazardous driving would be if every road or town used a different set of symbols or signs to conduct traffic. Consider the following questions when analyzing visual arguments:

1. When was the material created? Where was it created? What are the important cultural and social movements, discoveries, or events of that era?

2. What kind of media is it? Does it appear in a magazine, newspaper, billboard, or online? How much average time would we spend looking at it (different, say, if we are passing a billboard in a moving car or leafing through a magazine, or watching a television spot)?

3. Does this piece fall into a particular genre (i.e. the appeal from a celebrity, the promise of status or safety, the appeal to fear, or the family appeal)? What are the limitations of the genre?