When the Written Meets the Visual

Visual Rhetoric

While the written word has stood the test of time, acknowledging visual rhetoric is important in regards to globalization. With a focus on visuals, photos of Katrina, political cartoons and even graphs, it’s important to understand the influence that images can have on an issue. People want to see what’s going on, not have to read a five page article detailing a situation. Also, visuals allow the creator the opportunity to showcase what they want people to see and convey their message quickly and easily. They hit an emotional nerve in many cases because a photo is rarely emotionally neutral; it tends to evoke some sort of feeling in the viewer. Words, on the other hand, can be grouped together in a more neutral way, without a passionate tone or word choice.

Visual rhetoric isn’t strictly images though. It can also include text, as with political cartoons and advertisements. This allows for explanation and background on the image, so the viewer isn’t confused as to what they’re looking at. This specific visual shows how the two can be blended to show a creator’s view on globalization.

Visual and Written Rhetoric: A Dynamic Duo

By implementing both visual and textual elements, a certain opinion can be communicated quickly and easily. While straight text is more informative, offering more details, references and information, it can also be very dry and discourage people from reading. Straight visual rhetoric can be flashy, interesting and useful, but only if it doesn’t leave itself open to too much interpretation.

Using both visual and written elements to express an opinion allows the author the ability to communicate exactly what they want to convey to their audience. In this example of a political drawing, without the words, it would simply be a picture of a map, without the map, it would just be oddly placed words.

Connection to Class and Globalization

During class, videos and articles have been discussed, regarding large companies. How these companies spread, how they treat their employees and more importantly, how they affect the countries they are in. The videos and articles have explored the treatment of workers in China and Mexico, the spread of corporate companies in other countries, overtaking the local vendors and personal stories from the people affected.
There have been many instances when these companies do more harm than good for a country, but there are also a few cases where individuals have benefitted from a large company coming into their town. This picture clearly shows the harm being done by large companies and corporations.

It also discusses something that hasn’t been explored much in class yet, which is where materials come from. In the picture, Argentina is labeled with Whoppers and Big Macs, Argentina being known for some of the best meat in the world. Brazil, home of many rainforests, is labeled as the place for lumber. Factory farms are shown in the United States, where cheap meat can be produced for consumption. All of these try to convey that prized meat should be treated as more than fast food hamburger, that wood should not be taken from the rainforests and factory farms are taking over too large of an area.

Labor and political strife is highlighted on the map as well. Where unions rule and where cheap labor is abundant is focused on. Also, which countries have political problems, wars and in the United States, voting demographics are outlined.

Overall, the use of both a visual and textual elements is important to attract the reader. In this case, the skewed map attracts the viewer and the descriptions keep them looking.

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