Visual Rhetoric

Here is my attempt to define what I have come to learn of visual rhetoric.  This is based off my opinion from what I have learned in this class and through the different activities and projects we have been involved in.  Earlier in the semester, in Dr. Kyburz' other class in which I am enrolled, Critical Introduction to Literature, I was reminded of the valuable online resource 'OWL'.  OWL is the Online Writing Lab produced by Purdue University. 

I learned a lot about visual rhetoric through this simple page on OWL and would like to discuss this further because it is what my foundation of visual rhetoric has built upon since the beginning.  It all starts with visual literacy which branches off into three categories, visual thinking, visual learning, and visual rhetoric.  All three branch down into further categories which I won't mention, but visual rhetoric also branches into 3 lower categories: Art, Media, and Aesthetics.

This gave us a broad definition of visual rhetoric, but now let me centralize it further into what is done specifically.  Visual rhetoric is what images do to communicate with the viewer through what is contained in the image alone.  Verbal and aural communication do not factor into visual rhetoric.  Everything is contained solely on what the viewer sees and makes reason of within the image.  One must evaluate what the studium and punctum are of each image.  The studium is the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph whereas punctum is the wounding, personality touching detail that establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it (Camera Lucida).

Thus far, I have thoroughly enjoyed visual rhetoric! I've loved being able to look at images in a new way.  It's so fun to pick things other than texts apart and look deeply into them.  For so many years in my classes we look deeply at texts and analyze them.  I have loved learning how to do the same thing in the world of images.  The project has been so much fun and I'm excited to see what the final product turns out to be.  I've learned a lot so far, but know that I will only learn more as the semester progresses.

Below is an image from the OWL website containing the position of visual rhetoric and how it relates to visual literacy.



Image Credit:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/jpeg/20071221060657_691.jpg