Investigating visual rhetoric was actually kind of fun! I decided to Google it just for starters, and found there are so many articles on visual rhetoric about advertising.
This is what I found to help make sense of visual rhetoric. I don't know if any of you will be able to open it, but here's the link if you want to try:
It's all about how photojournalism is inspired by rhetoric. The authors address instances such as an immigrant mother, the Challenger explosion, people living during World War II, and others to make their point. They provide pictures to explain how facial expressions displayed in a picture can inspire empathy within a person.
I received an ad in the mail from the Democratic Party on Friday. Actually, I've received many ads, but one in particular was the only one I've actually looked at closely. The front depicts a woman sitting on the floor, her arms folded over her knees, in a seemingly dark and desolate room. On the back it says something to the effect that Dennis Rehberg doesn't support abortion even if it kills the mother. I felt so tricked! From the front of the ad, I couldn't even tell it was political. It made me feel totally bad for this woman, whom I've never met and is probably an actor for the photoshoot. Nonetheless, it still made me feel so sad for her. This ad is the epitome of visual rhetoric to me - a visual image communicating a message without words, just tugging on your heartstrings a little bit, or in this case, a lot!
I really wish I had a picture of this ad to post on here, but alas, I am on campus. When I get home, I will try to remember to take a picture and upload it to here so you can see what I'm talking about.
*Update* Here's the picture of the political ad I was talking about
This second debate was, by far, better than the first. The moderator controlled the topics better and the answers were better by both Romney and Obama. They still kept cutting her off though! Especially Romney. That's just rude and makes me not like you.
But, all in all, I couldn't tell who won exactly. Obama supporters seem pretty happy and Romney supporters seem pretty happy too. Something that really threw me off at first was the fact that Romney was wearing a blue tie and Obama was wearing a red tie. It's interesting how we associate colors like that to political parties! It was just neat!
In the beginning, I thought Obama was nailing it and Romney was like struggling to survive. Romney just wasn't answering the questions, he seemed to just point fingers and blame Obama for what he'd done to the economy or hadn't done to fix taxes for the middle class. After a bit, they both started getting more into their answers and answered the questions well, which made the debate interesting. When talking about foreign policy, they looked like they were about to swing a punch. Like the title suggests, there was just too much testosterone! Romney really pushed his CEO status and Obama addressed his status as the President.
One thing I noticed throughout the entire debate was that Obama really addressed the crowd in just about everything he said. He used a lot of "we" and "you" statements. He seemed to be able to connect with the people better in his responses. That could be because of his status as President. He has had lots of practice. On the other hand, Romney used a lot of "I" statements. It made me uneasy and a little disconnected. Romney's responses were just harder to follow than Obama's.
This was definitely an interesting assignment for sure. I originally had a topic idea of analyzing
in-depth the role of ethos, pathos, and logos in previously elected US
President’s. The more I looked into the topic, the more bored I started to
feel. I knew that if I were boring myself, I would probably bore all of you as
well. So last minute, I decided to change my topic to something I found
much more interesting – body language as rhetoric.
*Disclaimer* I'm sorry for any strange formatting... blogger didn't really like my word document.
Unspoken
Rhetoric: A Look into Body Language
Something that
I’ve heard for a long time throughout life in is that actions speak louder than
words. The older I get, the more and more I am beginning to agree with this
statement. A smile can completely change the mood of someone’s day and a turn
of the body in spite of a remark can completely change an onlooker’s viewpoint.
There is rhetoric that can be found and seen in our actions. Sometimes it can
be faint and other times it can be as visually loud as an atom bomb. Either
way, body language and the look of a person can be viewed as rhetoric. I also
see this being acknowledged in this current election season.
I decided to look
at the majority of this analysis through the lens of Aristotle’s version of
ethos. Ethos is all about the look of
a character – the trustworthiness or credibility of the speaker. The goal of
ethos is to display trustworthiness, convey a good impression, and establish
social authority. In the current Presidential election, these are all desirable
characteristics. Each candidate seriously needs to appeal to his audience in a
way that will make them respond in a positive way. This is where ethos steps in
and where body language becomes a driving force.
To start off, I
decided to look at the candidates and see what it means to look Presidential. Here’s what I found with a quick Google search:
This quick posting
details the physical appearance of Mitt Romney and why that is going to win him
the Presidency, in the authors’ opinion. A face-reading expert, Mac Fulfer,
analyzes Romneys' face. He goes through Romneys’ picture and analyzes his chin,
eyes, ears, and lips. Fuller says that, in the presidential election, U.S.
citizens are looking for a candidate with “warrior traits” someone to “fight
for us.” Although this analytical approach can be considered a little sketchy,
it is kind of interesting to read how people can read the look of another
person.
Next, just as a
little experiment, I decided to ask a couple of my friends to email me a
picture off of Google of a person who looked presidential, but was not
currently engaged in politics. Here’s what they sent to me - George Clooney and Michael Douglas.
I
couldn’t help but note the similarities between these two men: both have grey
hair, suit and tie, are at least 50 years old, and are kind of large and in
charge being that George Clooney and Michael Douglas are two of the most well
known and highly paid actors in Hollywood. Their looks portray the message of
boss-tastic. They want to be recognized and are given that recognition due to
their status. The same could be said of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as well.
There’s the same
sort of look for these two men – suit and tie, grey hair. Their look inspires
ethos, whether they plan for it to or not. Their grey hair helps show their age
and wisdom. It also gives us as the voter’s reassurance because they look
similar to the men who have come before them in the US presidency.
Linguistic
manipulation is incredibly important in political rhetoric. They have to be
able to persuade people. If a person cannot do that then well, they should not
be running for an elected public office. The same can be said of body language
and look as rhetoric. If the person does not sound, look, or appear to match
the part, they won’t be elected.
It’s interesting
how people’s body language, such as the two men mentioned above can be
translated into rhetoric. According to the Definitive
Book of Body Language (Random House 2007), a person’s eyes and posture have
a lot to do with rhetoric.
Eyes can either
tell or withhold information. Eye contact is a human need and is necessary for
bonding. This is one reason why we are told to make eye with our audiences
contact when giving speeches. It helps to convey a message, not only with your
words, but the look you convey through your eyes.
Posture is another
form of rhetoric that the book addresses. One can acquire a sense of interest
or disinterest in a person by observing the way a person stands or sits. The
position of a person’s shoulders, back, arm placement, and foot direction are
all cues as to what a person is feeling in the moment with what they are saying
or hearing. Examples of this can be feelings of insecurity, annoyance, pride,
and many others.
After learning the
very basics of body language analysis, I decided to put my newly acquired skills
to the test and see how President Obama fared in his body language rhetoric. I
chose President Obama to analyze simply because there are more videos of him. This
video addresses the rhetorical devices of story telling and repetition used by
President Obama in his speeches.
Throughout this video and his famous “Yes We Can” speech in 2008, you also see the rhetorical
devices of metaphor and personification. You also see him with very large hand
gestures that display his desire for openness.
There’s so much
more to body rhetoric than what I’ve mentioned in here. I feel like I’ve just
skimmed the surface. It is an important tool of rhetoric, especially in the
Presidential debates that many people tend to overlook in general because most
of it is read through our brain subconsciously. A lot of communication goes
unsaid – this is where the art of the rhetoric of body language becomes vital.
Body language conveys an unspoken message that we all pick up on, whether we
realize it or not.
Because I had to work late last night, I didn't actually get to see any of the presidential debate in action. Today, I got online and looked up some key things. This is what I found:
67.2 million viewers watched the debate at home. This doesn't include public areas like bars, airports, or even mobile devices. This is the second highest viewing of a presidential debate since 1980 between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (80.6 million viewers).
Based on a poll of 10 of my friends, five liberal and five conservative (Hey, I had to do something at work! Why not poll my friends?), eight were more pleased with Romney's answers and the remaining two refused to give in and held firm with Obama as the reigning champ.
In an interview for MSNBC after the debate, Rudy Giuliani said of Obama, "He has been a failure as a president and tonight he was a failure as a debater." Ouch! That's gotta sting a little...
Mitt Romney confessed his love for Big Bird, yet was rude and interrupted the PBS debate monitor many times.
Fact checkers were apparently very angry (and busy!) with all the facts they had to check. Both of the candidates did poorly on their truth scales.
In this instance, I saw the role of facts being rhetors. People believe facts. It's just how our society has programed our way of thinking. We're told to believe facts, because they are true. We like to rationalize things, and facts, well, those are pretty rationalized if you ask me. The facts that I found convinced me of what was true about the debates. I didn't need to sit here and watch hours worth of clips to figure out this information listed, I just looked up the facts.
There are so many of these terms! There's legitimately a word for everything.
accismus - A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.
example: Thank you, but I can't let you pay for that all on your own.
conduplicatio - The repetition of a word or words. A general term for repetition sometimes carrying the more specific meaning of repetition of words in adjacent phrases or clauses.
example: Life is what is being cherish at this wedding, oh sweet life.
epistrophe - Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.
example: What they had is now lost, what we had is also lost, now I am still lost.
tapinosis - Giving a name to something which diminishes it in importance. example: It was recently said of the Statue of Liberty that she is, "just a green lady in the middle of an ugly lake."
