visual argumentation…or visual rhetoric

defined

“Visual argumentation” designates the act of presenting a premise, prompting a method of reasoning and making a claim, all achieved primarily through visual communication.

aspects

Any account of visual argumentation “must identify how we can a) identify the internal elements of a visual image,b) understand the contexts in which images are interpreted, c) establish the consistency of an interpretation of the visual,

and d) chart changes in visual perspectives over time.”

“Toward a Theory of Visual Argumentation,” David Birdsell and Leo Groarke, Argumentation and Advocacy, Summer 1996.

integrative approach

at the levels of:pedagogycurriculumassessmentfaculty and staff development

rhetoric- logos- pathos- ethos

example: logos in An Inconvenient Truth

example: pathos in An Inconvenient Truth

semiotics- Ferdinand de Saussure- sign- signifier- signified

- Charles Peircemeaning is determined by reader/viewer in local context…

cinesemiotics- shot- scene- sequence

- identification- interpellation and suturing

cultural studies- Stuart Hall- encoding/decoding

- Marita Sturken and Lisa CartwrightPractices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture

- race, class and gender in visual culture

media studies- immersive arguments- experiential arguments- the role of play and projective stance

- James Gee- John Seely Brown and Doug Thomas

information visualization- Edward Tufte- “working at the intersection of word, image, number and art.”- writing, typography, managing data sets, statistical analysis,

line, layout and color…- “escaping flatland”

visual tropes

• metaphor• metonymy• juxtaposition• recontextualization

resources• Roland Barthes, “The Rhetoric of the Image”• Gunther Kress + Theo Van Leeuwen, Multimodal Discourse• Gunther Kress + Theo Van Leeuwen, Reading Images• Mary E. Hocks “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing

Environments” • W.J.T. Mitchell, Picture Theory• Edward Tufte, Envisioning Information• Anne Wysocki, Compose, Design, Advocate• Viz: http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu