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Victor Mercado
Professor Derohanessian
English 114A
18 November 2014

The Twisted Art of Visual Rhetoric

Everyday of our lives we are constantly bombarded with pictures that make us feel a variety of emotions and can possibly persuade us to question about what we know of that image.
As we go on with our daily lives seeing these images with some of them targeting multiple audiences with different opinions or even similar preferences based on what is trying to be said by
looking at the images. We tend to see some of these pictures on one side and interpret the meaning in the way that we want to see it but in reality, there could be many different meanings and
interpretations on that one image. I believe that the way used to determine the meaning would be
based on what we are facing in life at that moment and the environment that surrounds us that
can modify our interpretation of the picture itself.
Anywhere we are at, there are pictures around that try to tell us something; some are advertisements, persuasive images to get you thinking, and even some pictures that say something
broad to where it can be processed in to many unusual meanings. The images speak out to us in
different ways but the way we determine how we look and think about them is mostly based on
how it is presented and how we can relate or possibly even disagree with the message from the
picture. In the book review Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising," the author
Elizabeth J. Leebron joined by Paul Messaris elaborates on the idea that

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the way these images are advertised can really determine how well, or bad they are looked upon.
Paul begins a discussion on how ads can express arguments or make claims in the absence of an
explicit propositional syntax" and example that he used was Ronald Reagan era political ad that
had President Reagan placed into pictures that contained employees going to their variety of
work which in his case would implement that he could have possibly created those jobs in an effort to reduce Unemployment Rates. Even this modest message can be twisted and bent into
thinking that the President is forcing these people to work, and they are no more than slaves to
their employer. Simple images can be used, abused and end up becoming the victim of a misinterpretation which could happen if an advertisement such as this one of President Reagan was
placed in a hostile anti-Reagan environment, and that is where the clear message of the picture is
totally misguided due of the beliefs of the people in that certain area.
As described in Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising, another article
named Visual Rhetoric and Global Advertising Imagery by authors Sandy Bulmer & Margo
Buchanan-Oliver, it is said that the meaning behind an image can be determined by not only
what the picture is composed of but as well as what the viewers are influenced by. An example
of this found on pg. 4 in paragraph 2 and it states, Meaning is developed by consumers of advertising in an act of synthesis that is mediated by the influences of the social and individual
realm: how the individual reads an advertisement depends on the uses the person has for the interpreted meaning and on their unique life experiences and plans (Ritson and Elliott, 1995).
Now this quote explains itself saying that the way we develop meaning for a picture is by finding
the influences of both the social and individual realm, and by comparing and contrasting it to
our unique life experiences and ultimately our plans. This piece of the writing is crucial to

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the way we look at certain images because it leads to different meanings in others due to the
comparisons to ones own life experiences and lifestyle.
An example I would like to provide would be the purple ribbon (see fig.1) that stands for
domestic violence, which is an act so brutal where men beat on their female partners for many
different reasons although it is against the law to take such actions. Now if you take a picture of
this ribbon and show it to a family where father is abusive and had committed acts similar to
domestic violence, they would react differently as another family that is not abused by their father and are peaceful every day. One family would be stunned and know that what their father is
doing is against the law and is also morally wrong, in contrast to the other family where they
dont feel that way, but instead they feel bad for those have to suffer from such brutality. The
image has two different meanings when presented to the two types of families and ultimately
changes the rhetoric that the image was originally meant to have simple importance because of
the comparison to the real-life experiences by the two families.
These examples all explain that the regular images that we see are meant for one thing
can be turned into many different meanings in many different settings. In both my cited works
they explain that this is true based on how we as people are taking these images and comparing
them to what we are going through in life which ultimately makes us create more than just the
meaning of the image and this is why some pictures are twisted and bent into something entirely
different. We change the meaning in all of the images and we are the reasons why the pictures
are interpreted to something else rather than their true purpose all based on because we all have
different experiences which change our own perceptions of the pictures.

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Works Cited
Leebron, Elizabeth J. "Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising." Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media Fall 1997: 589+. General OneFile. Web.
Bulmer, Sandy, and Margo Buchanan-Oliver. "Visual Rhetoric and Global Advertising
Imagery." Journal of Marketing Communications, 12.1 (2006): 49-61. Print.

Fig.1