Jordan Donze Extra Credit

The Praxis reading this week reflected on the different ways to respond rhetorically.  There are different ways to respond to multimedia.  Word of mouth is replacing traditional media as the major news filter, especially for younger viewers.  This means instead of watching the news, people are sending out emailed links and videos to friends and their social networks.  These people are going back and forth between emails, text-messages, television viewing, and internet surfing while sharing their choice of rhetoric pieces with others.  the line between oral, written, and visual “texts” have always been blurred to some point.  Speeches delivered orally in person or on the television have a visual component, while a written text must be processed by the mind of the audience.  Many techniques used to analyze written and oral texts also can be applied to visual media, such as cartons, advertisements, and television

There are many methods of analyzing visual rhetoric.  In art criticism, viewers look for symbolism or try and discover the meaning the artist is trying to portray.  Rhetoricians consider the argument that an image can present to a viewer.  They think about how the subject of the image is presented to other visual elements, how the image is shaped, and what types of colors are involved.  Rhetoricians pay close attention to the interaction between the visual image and any text that may appear with the image and how the two create an argument.

There is an interaction between texts and images.  The texts encountered in everyday life include newspapers, magazines and the internet are combined with images.  When readers first glance at the media, their attentional is likely to first be caught by the photos, rather than the headlines.  After being engaged by the attention-getting elements, viewers are more likely to read the written text.  Student writers have access to the use of visual elements in their compositions.  Adding  photos not only catches the reader’s attention, but also emphasizes certain points within the argument to create an overall mood.