Visual rhetoric analysis

In a news story presented by the online version of NBC news, a major American network, an article about #BlackLivesMatter includes photographic imagery of a large social protest that took place in 2013. The protest followed in the wake of George Zimmerman being found not guilty on charges of second-degree murder of an unarmed black man—an event that showcased the extent to which even the law fails to protect the lives of innocent people of color. In one photographic image used in this news story, the photographer captures a significant moment in the protest in which five individuals together hold up a large banner that has written on it nothing but the hastag and name of the organization #BlackLivesMatter. The background of the banner is black and white stripes, which is symbolic and reflects the interracial harmony intended by both the organization and the photographer who captured the image. This image shows how the organization #BlackLivesMatter uses the logos of digital media and the pathos of the civil rights movement to promote an ethos of collective social responsibility and social justice.

Images like the one on NBC’s website help to construct the identity of the #BlackLivesMatter movement as one that is harmonious and consistent with the egalitarian ideals of the nation. The appeal to logos is evident both in the textual elements of the image, which contains simply the hashtag name of the organization. In fact, #BlackLivesMatter carefully chooses its name to underscore three critical elements of the civil rights campaign. First, the movement stresses the identities and lived experiences of African Americans and indeed all non-whites in America. The experience of institutionalized racism does persist in America, evidenced by high profile cases like the Trayvon Martin shooting. Second, the slogan’s use of the word “lives” stresses the existential issues at stake: black lives are literally being lost in a discriminatory social, legal and political landscape. Finally, the word “matter” calls attention to the meaningfulness of the movement but more significantly of the ways black and white lives have historically been valued differently in America—a vestige of slavery and Jim Crow.
Drawing attention to the emotional content of the movement, the image also depicts the people holding the banner with passionate faces, and one has his fist in the air. Moreover, the photographer makes sure to capture the emotionality of the civil rights movement in general through the depiction of a mixed-race crowd carrying a banner that is deliberately drawn in black and white stripes. The image shows how the #BlackLivesMatter movement is one that all persons can and should support; the movement is far from exclusionary as its critics have claimed and is in fact the definition of inclusivity and equality in America.
Finally, this image captures the identity of the #BlackLivesMatter movement as being solidly grounded in and connected with the ethos of the original civil rights movement of the 1960s. The fact that people in the year 2013 would still have to march in the streets almost fifty years after Martin Luther King’s activism says it all: America has yet to learn the tragic lessons of the past. When armed white men, and police officers too, are given the legal authority to shoot and kill unarmed black men simply because they perceived a threat, the country has yet to live up to its constitutional ideals. Through an image showing white, black, and mixed-race individuals holding the #BlackLivesMatter banner, the media also shows how black men continue to be portrayed as suspicious and sinister, thus preventing the achievement of social justice goals.
An image like this one depicts the essence of social protest movements, and how they use pathos, ethos, and logos to achieve their goals. Journalists for the mainstream media organization NBC have created and disseminated this politically charged visual message, highlighting the complicity of the media in constructing how social justice organizations are depicted. Collective action and collective social responsibility become the underlying themes of the image and the movement it captures.



Works Cited

Chuck, Elizabeth. “#BlackLivesMatter: How a Hastag Became a Digital Civil Rights Anthem.” NBC News. 11 Aug, 2015. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/blacklivesmatter-how-hashtag-became-digital-civil-rights-anthem-n405316