This whole class is about argument: making arguments, responding to arguments, and analyzing arguments. You just made your own argument from personal experience in which you used ethos and pathos, and for this assignment, you will study an argument made by someone else and write a detailed analysis of that argument. You’ll consciously engage with rhetorical concepts such as ethos, pathos, logos, kairos, etc.
What is a visual argument?
• An advertisement in a magazine
• A political cartoon
• A statue
• A public service announcement poster or flyer
• Many other images (see ch. 14 of Everything’s An Argument)
What makes one image a visual argument and another just an image? This question is open to debate, but some images are safer bets than others. An advertisement is typically an argument; the company is trying to persuade you to buy something. In your analysis of a visual argument, you will need to choose a visual argument and answer three main questions:
1.) What is the message — what is the author or artist trying to persuade you to do or think?
2.) How is the author or artist making this argument? (This requires detailed discussion to successfully answer.)
3.) What audience is being targeted, and what assumptions are made about them? Are the assumptions fair and accurate? Why or why not?
A successful Analysis of a Visual Argument assignment will:
• give a thorough, detailed written description of the visual argument
• summarize the claim made in the visual: this image aims to convey X…. that the audience should do X because…
• establish the author’s purpose based on the argumentative purposes laid out in EAA ch. 1
• analyze the audience targeted in the visual argument: the artist expects this audience to respond to V because the artist assumes this audience likes/does/believes/sees themselves as…
• analyze the context of the visual argument: where it appears (what type of publication), when it appears, what cultural phenomena/current events are being referenced and used, etc. You are not going to be in any position to analyze the audience unless you know something about the context.
• analyze the rhetorical appeals and strategies at work: your analysis will not be successful unless you demonstrate knowledge of the rhetorical terms: for example, ethos, pathos, logos, kairos.
• consider a variety of possible interpretations of the image (acknowledge that there’s not only one way to read the image)
• evaluate whether the argument is successful at achieving its intended purpose
Allowed to choose whichever visual you want, but I need to know which one so it can be added to the Bottom of the essay
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