Visual analysis methods and applications

Visual Analysis

In the text, Blair asserts that rhetoric and argument have been conventionally linked to the verbal. In turn, he purposes to consider whether visuals can be arguments. An argument in this context encompasses the reasons for accepting a particular point of view. He elucidates the erudition that indicates that arguments are not just verbal in the same ways to the arguments made by Birdsell and Groarke. Despite this, Blair goes on to proclaim that even though there can be purely visual arguments, a great deal of communications that contend to be visual arguments are amalgamations of the visual and the verbal. Owing to this, Blair goes on to examine verbal and visual arguments. He labels the grouping of these two arguments as visual. On the other hand, he labels verbal to be stringently verbal. Bearing this in mind, he delineates that a visual/verbal is an argument contrasted with solely persuasion, if one can \"construct from what is communicated visually a verbal argument that is consistent with the visual presentation\" (Blair p. 49). In this context, persuasion is meant to encompass fashioning one\'s outlooks, beliefs and even actions. A fitting illustration in this case encompasses political cartoons. The argument made within the text is that numerous television infomercials are neither argument nor are they considered as persuasion (Hill and Helmers, 2012). This is for the reason that they instigate insentient sentiments that the onlooker does not have any control over. Consequently, even though this emotive prompt can just warranty the spectator\'s response, it does not imply persuasion or argument (Blair, 1996).

There are three fundamental reasons given by Blair for using visual arguments over spoken arguments and print arguments. First, a significant number of images can be communicated in a short period of time, and this gives rise to the narrative capabilities of visual. For instance, television commercials display almost fifty dissimilar moving visual images in a span of thirty seconds. Individuals find no difficulty processing such information. However, if it were verbal, it would be challenging to process (Scott, 1994; Jeong, 2008). Verbal images necessitate a greater period of time for an individual to process and comprehend. The second reason encompasses the sense of realism that the visual expresses. For instance, it is deemed that news on the television is better in comparison to print, simply because in the former one is able to perceive precisely what took place whilst the latter encompasses secondary reported information (p. 51). The third aspect is that visual communication enables immediate and powerful expressions from individuals in comparison to what verbal communication facilitates. This is in the sense that the former is much more efficacious compared to the latter. In particular, so as to communicate and elicit emotions, the verbal arguer is forced to depend on his or her oratorical prowess to cause the audience to implement its sympathetic imaginings. This can considerably fail due to lack of effective redolence and also lack of the audience being in line with the imagination being verbalized. More so, the audience can fail in being imaginative (Blair, 2004:53).