S: Hi Lucas,
whatcha reading?
L: Calvin and Hobbes. It’s pretty
entertaining; I’ve never read it before.
A: You’ve never
read Calvin and Hobbes before?! Have
you been living under a rock or something? That was my favorite childhood
comic!
S: No kidding! It
provides great material for rhetoricians to work from…
A: Oh no, this
had better not be one of your metaphysical discussions.
S: Oh c’mon,
they’re fun! Anyway, I think the cartoonist, Bill Watterson, combines both text
and image to send powerful messages to readers; he uses a simple form of
multimodality to influence audience. Which by the way, I believe multimodality
will be the most powerful rhetoric that humans up to this point have
encountered. Just sayin’.
(pause)
L: Okay, hold up.
Now you are going to drag us into
your theoretical discussion thingy. You can’t expect us to buy a statement like
that without a little unpacking first.
A: Ooh, I want to
say something right off the bat.
S: Okay, shoot.
A: You said
multimodality will be the most powerful rhetoric, blah blah blah. Right?
S: Something like
that.
A: And you said a
combination of text and image constitutes multimodality, correct? So text and
image are two different modes. But aren’t you contradicting yourself there?
Text is an image.
L: I think what
Sadie meant was image as a picture.
A: But…
L: Wait a second,
I know where you’re going, and I’m already way ahead of you. You were going to
argue that text is a picture, an image—what’s the difference? Well, let me
define a few terms for you. Any image used to represent a person, place, thing,
or idea is an icon. Icons are divided
into different categories. Pictures
are a type of icon, and they are designed to resemble their subject. Text is included among non-pictorial icons because they don’t resemble their subject at
all. The meaning is fixed and absolute. For example, people may argue what the
word “love” really means, but they can’t dispute the fact that the letters
l-o-v-e make up a pictorial icon stating “love.”
S: Well said,
sir!
L: Thank you.
A: Sure whatever,
that makes sense. But is multi-modality—in this case, text and picture—really the most effective
rhetoric? I think pictures do a pretty good job on their own for persuading
people.
S: Really? I
think pictures can help illustrate
what the text is saying, so they do add some
nuances of meaning to the message—that’s why I think multi-modality is better
than text alone—but they aren’t really that persuasive
on their own.
A: Wanna bet?
Unlike text, which we have to have a special knowledge to perceive, pictures are easy to understand because we receive the information—we don’t need
any additional education to “get the message.” And why do you think pictures are so easy to
comprehend?
S: Um…
A: Because they
elicit an emotion in us. We all have experiences that allow us to make sense of
an image and relate to it in some way. Our emotions are tied in with our
experiences, so if a picture tugs at our memory of certain experiences, it will
naturally tug at our emotions associated with those experiences.
L: Yeah, and
emotion is super important in rhetoric!
S: Whose side are
you on? And besides, pathos, or
appeal to emotion, is a technique of argument, but good argument relies mostly
on logos—logic—and ethos—credibility.
L: Not true. Because underneath “emotion” is just an
expression of values, and people argue not with rationality, but with values.
A: Exactly. There are some things beyond the scope of
reason, and some of those things are our values.
L: Have you ever
read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal?
S: Yeah, it’s so
morbid. I know it’s supposed to be satirical, but who could ever think of
proposing the murder of masses of children to stave off famine in a country?
A: But you’ve got
to admit, throughout the essay, Swift’s argument does sound reasonable, does it not?
S: I suppose…
L: So why didn’t
you buy it?
S: C’mon man,
killing people is wrong!
L: According to
your values.
S: Yes.
A: Can you
reasonably justify it?
(Silence)
S: I can’t
believe you just went there.
L: The point is, pathos is really the heart of good
reasoning.
S: No pun
intended.
L: Shut up.
A: Sadie, you had
said that argument relies heavily on ethos,
and I agree with that. But ethos is
also determined by values. If someone presents something to us, we
automatically search for some sort of credibility in him. We’re not supposed to
judge a book by its cover, but we totally do. We test the appearance of that
presenter against our values. If we can identify
with him and start off with shared values, then we might actually be open to
what he might say. And thus, we are
allowing him the possibility of persuading us.
S: Basically, you
two are telling me that humans are as much valuing
as they are reasoning creatures.
L: Yup.
A: This goes back
to what I said earlier about pictures eliciting emotion in us. Emotion—or value—is
the doorway to persuasion.
L: I’m gonna go
off of something else you said earlier, that image relates to our emotion because
we bring past experiences to them in order to even comprehend them. Our past histories are pretty much
compilations of stories, or narratives, because each time we tell them, or even
think of them, we reconstruct the events a little differently each time. We
value meaning and purpose, and stories help us discover—or create—meaning and
purpose in life.
A: People don’t
care what you say unless it’s relevant and important to them—it’s gotta be personal, in relation to their values. And
if our brains process pictures through the lens of past experience…then we can
view pictures as stories, created and
communicated to give order to human experience.
L: People also
don’t want to be meaningless spectators of stories—they want to co-write the story. What better way to
relate to a story than if you’re personally involved in it?
A: That’s why
pictures are so powerful—they demand
your participation and involvement in order for them to work. In a way, because
a viewer would add some of his own experience in interpreting a picture, he
is essentially “co-writing” the story of the picture!
S: And the best
kind of persuasion is when people don’t realize you’re persuading them. People
are more likely to accept your proposition if they believe they were the ones
to come up with it.
L: Now you’re picking up what we’re putting
down.
S: But what if
people misinterpret something? That kind of defeats your whole purpose as a
writer. You wouldn’t even know exactly what you “persuaded” them of.
A: You’re
forgetting that image can imply many
things through different techniques. For example, a close-up of an image draws
the viewer in and makes them feel connected; a picture of a person “looking”
directly at the viewer also has the same effect. Why? Because they remind us of
our real-life experiences with making conversations with people.
L: You also can
imply something in pictures that you wouldn’t get away with saying in words.
Think about commercials you see on TV, especially the ones during the Super
Bowl. Doritos and Budweiser come to mind. Through imagery, they imply that
their products will bring you social status or a great sex life, but if they
said that in words, people would be immediately disgusted and not as persuaded
to buy the product. They imply something in pictures while avoiding the
consequences of saying it in words.
A: Yeah, take a
look at this Calvin and Hobbes comic,
which is a great example of rhetoric. How would you interpret it?
S: Calvin was
probably watching something that he shouldn’t have been watching.
A: Right. This
comic could be used to illustrate the negative effects that current television
has on children, that television content should be censored more—whatever. The
list goes on. Those topics are heatedly debated, but a simple picture like this
could bypass some of the consequences of saying it in words. Again, part of the
reason you’d be persuaded of this is because you’re more involved in
interpreting the picture and “writing” the story behind it.
S: You make a
good point, but I still think that as a rhetorician, you don’t have much
control over how people may interpret a picture you create. Of course it can be
useful, but text still constrains meaning more so than image. For example,
you’d have a hard time using image to express analogies, contrasts, causal
claims, and other sorts of propositions. I mean, you could use cross-cutting
between images to create some sort of parallels, but it wouldn’t be as concrete
as simply stating it through text….(flips
through book)…Here’s a good example of a clausal claim. How could you make that understood without using words? (points to mom/dad on pg 24)
A: sighs
S: Haha, yes,
point for text!
L: I think we’re
getting away from Sadie’s original main point: that multi-modality is one of
the most powerful rhetorics out there. Obviously we’ve discussed the importance
of pictures, but how pictures are also limited in the messages they can
convey—that’s where text can pick up the slack. Together however, text and picture can present a fuller message
than what either can do individually. Look at this…(flips to pg 10)…The pictures and text complement each other, even
though in this instance, the text probably has higher priority toward the
meaning of the message. (covers the
pictures) You can read just the text and understand it, right?
S: Yes…
L: But look how
the picture adds to the text. It constrains the meaning even more.
A: Hey, I want to
see that book now. (flips through to pg
98) This would be sort of what you just said, Lucas, except the roles of
image and text are flip-flopped. (covers
the words) The images are maybe the primary “story”—you can still get a
kick out of the pictures alone. But the text also adds to the hilarity of the
story, and refines your interpretation of it even more.
L: So point of
the discussion: not every meaning can be realized in every mode in the exact
same way. Meaning is realized in mode-specific articulations. The more nuances
of meaning you invite people to realize and construct, the more they’re
participating in your message, and therefore, the more likely that you can
persuade them.
(pause)(screen fades to black; you can only
hear voiceover)
A: Mind blown. (sarcastically) Gee, thanks Sadie.
L: Yeah dude. Now
I’ll be scarred for life whenever I read Calvin
and Hobbes.
S: Oh c’mon you
guys, it was a great discussion…
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