Christina Giarrusso

ePortfolio Reflection

What is visual rhetoric?

To define visual rhetoric, I draw primarily on the work of Foss and Rose, two of our earlier
readings in the class. According to Foss, visual rhetoric is both the study of visual texts and their
rhetorical functions and the production of rhetorical visual texts. What does this mean? Visual
rhetoric can be defined as the practice of looking at a visual text and analyzing its rhetorical
nature, perhaps by focusing on Roses three major sites: the site of audiencing, the site of the
image itself, and/or the site of production. In this way, visual rhetoric is a study of visual texts as
artifacts, artifacts perhaps overlooked in the historically logocentric study of rhetoric. Visual
rhetoric can also be defined as a created visual artifact; we can call a visual text a piece of visual
rhetoric, as Foss identifies in her framework. For example, I could create visual rhetoric, as I did
in project three, when I composed a double exposure image of myself and the flag of the
Philippines.
While it seems that the former definition is prioritized (the analysis of the rhetorical
nature of visual texts), the two definitions seem to work together. For example, when we looked
at the text on the Vietnam War Memorial, Sturken both analyzed (participating in the study of
visual rhetoric) the Vietnam War Memorial and its rhetorical qualities, based on compositional
features, like its design, color, shape, size, and look, and she paid some attention to the creation
of this memorial as an artifact in itself, noting the composer, Maya Ying Lins, choices and
public comments about the memorial. The analysis, the scholarly side, is surely more prominent.
Perhaps this is because it is sometimes easier for a scholar to analyze, drawing upon her own
faculties to do so, than it is to participate in creating visual rhetoric, or even finding information
about the creation of visual rhetoric. However, I think that scholars like Gries and Edbauer-Rice,
in their discussions of circulation and rhetorical ecologies, bring the composition of visual
rhetoric into view, and emphasize visual rhetoric as artifacts. Trimbur does similar work,
bringing production back to the forefront as he writes about typography and the page as a unit of
discourse.
What do we know about it?
We know that visual rhetoric is at times at odds with verbal rhetoric, either as an addition to the
study of verbal rhetoric, or as doing completely different work than verbal rhetoric, as Foss
describes. Scholars tend to work within the former frame of thinking, as Messaris points out in
his review of a few visual rhetoric collections. Once more, as scholars, it may be easier to talk
about visual rhetoric in verbal rhetoric termsit has been the primary way of studying rhetoric
for so long. The challenge is to consider what visual rhetoric is doing separate from our previous
knowledge. What is different; what is, up until now, unnamed? And what names will we assign
in this study of the unknown? The ambiguity of the visual in particular can frustrate rhetoric
scholarsambiguity can function rhetorically at times, but it can also obscure. For instance,
though visual rhetoric is (sometimes) created purposely, the composer cannot control the
audiences reception or interpretation. The study of visual rhetoric is similarly ambiguous. There
is no cemented, universally accepted theory of visual rhetoric, no list of required moves for the
analysis of visual rhetoric or the creation of visual rhetoric. Though it may sound like there is
more that we dont know about visual rhetoric (which may well be true), there are some things

Christina Giarrusso

ePortfolio Reflection

that it seems we can generalize.

Materiality matters. Roses site of audiencing is important in understanding how visual
rhetoric works, and a key aspect of audiencing is materiality. As both scholars and composers of
visual texts, the materials and modes used to create visual rhetoric can tell us much about the
success of visual texts in terms of audience reception. For example, Sturkens analysis of the
Vietnam War Memorial spent time discussing the ways that visitors to the memorial interacted
with it, especially by leaving items behind. Visitors also trace names from the wall to take them
home, and others take photographs of the wall. Others touch the wall or trace over names with
their fingers. Another example of the importance of materiality can be found in the Wright piece
on photograph albums. This article discussed how photograph albums were displayed, put
together, how photos were arranged and adhered to the page, and even how cameras themselves
as materials that produce visuals had a hand in who became photographers, and whose view of
the world was captured in these photograph albums: mothers. What is different about audience
interaction (and even production) with a Facebook photo album, which can be shared, liked, and
tagged, vs. a print photograph album in a book with covers and slots for photographs? On the
production side of visual rhetoric, visual texts created for children can range from books, to
movies, to coloring books, to toys, and my first project for this class touched on how the
materiality of the context of a single visual changed that visual. For example, a plush Mulan toy
made Mulans features rounder, cuter, and much different from her depiction in the Disney
movie. How else does materiality affect the visual and its rhetorical effects? How can we talk
about and theorize the materiality of visuals to help us better understand how to produce
rhetorically powerful visual texts in different situations?
Visuals can be argumentative. We typically think of visuals as proof, but we know that
seemingly objective visuals have their own rhetorical agendas, like maps, or family photograph
albums, or even childrens toys. One of the ways that visuals can have rhetorical influence is by
being argumentative. Some, like Fleming, argue that visuals cannot be arguments in and of
themselves, relying on logocentric definitions of argument (because, in their view, leaving out
the previously agreed upon definitions of argument would leave no benchmark, no anchor for the
study of argument. Argument would be meaningless, or have too many competing meanings).
Others, like Birdsell and Groarke, believe that images are no more ambiguous than words, and
that with a different mode comes a different way of constructing arguments. Though these
scholars are at odds, it seems that Fleming can at least concede that visuals can provide the
evidence for an argument, and that perhaps with words and visuals together, an argument could
be created. Its easy to think about the arguments that political cartoons make, like the one
pictured, both making a claim (that taxing corporations could help those in need instead of those
living comfortably, or even lavishly) and providing visual evidence for that claim (by depicting
those in need right outside of a swanky restaurant), but this argument is constructed through text
and visuals together. It might even be easy to think about how graphic novels construct
arguments, like the McCloud piece we read in this class on icons and identification. Visuals use
different tools to appeal to audiencescolor, juxtaposition, artistic techniques and styles
(watercolor, manga, photographs, collages, etc.), shape, size, and even more aspects of

Christina Giarrusso

ePortfolio Reflection

compositionality than I could list here. It would be interesting to continue this research on visual
rhetoric and see the ways that visual arguments workhow do audiences receive these
arguments? What makes a successful visual argument?
There is not enough room to add much more about what we know, but one last quick
generalization that we can make is: Design isnt all about aesthetics. Visuals use design to
communicate visually, like Bernhardt tells us with visually informative texts, and the ways that
design is used, through juxtaposition, contrast, repetition, alignment, and more, can aid visual
texts in fulfilling their rhetorical purposes. Though following the principles of design can create a
beautiful text, these principles can also do rhetorical work. Unfortunately, my typography
poster did not do the best job of using design to inform viewers. Hopefully, my design choices
in project three, the double exposure, were useful in using design for rhetorical ends. My design
choices in the collab share (spacing, moving text, changing color and size, organizing different
peoples writing together into one post) seemed to work to communicate to my group the way
that I saw our ideas coming together, and the point that I saw our ideas working toward.
Why should we study it and why should we practice it?
As stated above, we know that the visual is doing different things than the verbal is when
it comes to rhetoric. It is worth our time as scholars, especially in a digital age, to explore how
the visual uses rhetoric, or how the visual is rhetorical. We would be remiss to ignore this, or to
continue to study visual rhetoric through a verbal rhetoric lens, using the vocabulary of verbal
rhetoric. We are bombarded by visuals every day through various, changing media, and these
visuals are changing us. We can see this by looking at history, and not only how history has
changed visuals and the materials and processes used to create visuals, but also by how visuals
have come to change history, or not change history, like the case of the anti-suffrage postcards.
Further, as scholars, it would be irresponsible to study visual rhetoric without creating it
ourselves. The production of visual texts allows for a different, deeper understanding of how
visuals have rhetorical effects. The act of making design and material choices, using different
tools and skills, and attempting to create Bitzerian changes in reality or to spark Edbauer-Ricean
rhetorical ecologies provides a way to see the inner workings of visual rhetoric. What works for
audiences? What gets circulated? What makes a successful argument? What appeals to
emotions? And what, though we try, cannot be controlled by the makers of visual rhetoric? A key
component of visual rhetoric is that it cannot be contained, something I learned when I posted a
simple Veteran's Day note and picture on my father's Facebook wall. It is ambiguous, easy to
circulate, and easy to remix, so we have a lot of work to do, and a multitude of visual texts to
work with.
It is clear visuals can do things that words cannot, or, at least, visuals do things differently
than words. From the multiple representation project, we can see how different representations of
a single event, person, or place show a variety of sides of that object. What words might tell in so
many pages, photographs can do in a few images. Hales analysis of the Manhattan Project, for
example, relied on images to tell the story of a place, which, in some ways, was representative of
that space, but as a whole, the story was incomplete. There werent representations of people, of
homes, or of families. Just as they can reveal, visuals can hide. The ways that visuals obscure, or

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ePortfolio Reflection

leave out, can create a different, but equally important, rhetorical effect. What is not seen, then, is
just as important as what is. For me, this is the magic and the enigma of the visual. I am
interested, as my final project indicates, in the ways that race is represented in the visual, and the
ways that we develop conceptions of race based on visual rhetoric. As a Filipina-ItalianAmerican, I am not represented in visuals often. However, stereotypes follow my skin color, eye
shape, and hair color. I am interested in the ways that visual rhetoric represents race now, and
how it might, for a more empowering end, as my major projects might indicate. I hope that we,
though armed with different theories of visual rhetoric and differing vocabularies and interests,
can use what we know to learn more about the ways that visuals change the world we live in, and
the ways that we can produce visuals to change the world for the better.