Visual Persuasion
Visual messages appeal to our emotions and our intellect - they evoke feelings, yet require reason, intent, and purpose to make sense. In advertising, visual messages are persuasive when they are designed to change a person’s mind or promote a desired behavior. Persuasive messages create lasting impressions, deliver content more rapidly and help people retain information longer. J. Anthony Blair observes, visual messages are more efficient than words because visual expression evokes emotions with greater force and immediacy.
Persuasion is a socially accepted way of attempting to change individuals’ attitudes.
Aristotle wrote that persuasion is achieved by an individual's character or reputation. The source must be credible to convince and persuade us. In today’s visual culture, however, it is not just words that can put an audience in a certain frame of mind. In addition, the message must engage us emotionally. Finally, the information has to make sense - it must appeal to our common sense. Aristotle’s modes of persuasion refer to ethos, pathos, and logos.
Aristotle’s modes of persuasion are as relevant today as they were in 4th century B.C.
Ethos refers to the first mode of persuasion and represents the credibility of the source of the information. In this image, what is inferred visually that may influence a potential buyer? Secondly, what does the visual message tell us about the character of the individual selling the home? Finally, is this picture persuasive?
- Ethos: Credibility of Message
- Pathos: Character of Being
- Logos: Makes Sense to an Average Person
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Aristotle's Three Modes of Persuasion
Codes
Codes designate the rules and conventions by which something is recognized as belonging to a common linguistic, visual, or cultural system. Theorist Roland Barthes was interested in understanding the meaning of visual messages that have three levels of structure: a ‘linguistic’ message, and iconic or ‘symbolic’ message, and a ‘literal’ message. Using the idea of a “rose”, we can see where the flower has been coded linguistically - it has a name. In addition, we can add secondary meanings in terms of what the rose suggests for us. In other words, the rose has been coded with symbolic meaning - love. Finally, there is the literal meaning of the thing - something that is not coded.
Images can have both literal or figurative meaning. When we see something in a picture that we recognize as familiar to us, we understand its literal or denotative meaning because we have been told since we were children that is what it is - a house. At the same time, the house we see in the image can have more abstract or symbolic meanings, which is referred to as connotative meaning. Connotation refers to secondary cultural meaning. For example, a rose, at it denotative or the most basic or literal meaning of a sign signifies a kind of flower. However, the connotative meaning of a rose is tied to cultural conventions such as representing love or passion.
Three Kinds of Coded Meaning
1. Linguistic Meaning - name of flower (rose)
2. Connotative Meaning - symbolic message (love)
3. Denotative Meaning - the literal meaning (flower)
Codes can be looked at as ways of making sense of signs, as systems of conventions that we are taught or pick up from our culture.
The relationship between signs and what they means is arbitrary.
Codes help us makes sense of signs (find meaning)
Codes are systems of conventions we learn.
Culture can be seen as a collection of codes.
•Signs within an image are presented in various ways for a variety of media.
•People think of images through thoughts composed of words.
•People link individual elements into a narrative whole.
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Shock Advertising
Visual messages designed to sell products or change behavior are based on factual information that people understand. At the same time, some advertisers use controversial or unusual images to attract attention and generate media. The clothing manufacturer Bennetton is known for it’s use of “shock advertising”.
In 1992, Bennetton created an advertising campaign that was considered either as brilliant marketing or morally distasteful. The advertisement shows a young man dying of HIV/AIDS with the brand’s logo appearing in the bottom right corner. While Bennetton explicitly pushes its political opinion on viewers, the question as to whether such “shock” strategies actually work. Research shows that this approach is actually effective, at least in the short term. People are drawn into the sensationalism of the advertisement, but do not retain the political message over time. For more than three decades, Bennetton has continued to use this technique to establish a visual identity that differs from other clothing manufactures such as Calvin Klein, which also uses “shock” advertising.
Photo Credit: Therese Frare @ 1990
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Visual Propaganda
Visual propaganda uses one-sided and often nonfactual information or opinions that appear to be facts, along with emotional appeals, to change a person’s mind and promote a desired behavior.
The term propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally benign or innocuous. The term acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative examples (e.g. Nazi used visual messages to justify the Holocaust). Visual propaganda aims to influence thought and action through debatable techniques.
Propaganda Posters began in the 20th century:
During WWII, famed children’s author Dr. Seuss, contributed to the war effort by creating propaganda for the U.S. government. Jonathan Crow writes, Dr. Seuss “During his tenure he cranked out some 400 cartoons that, among other things, praised FDR’s policies, chided isolationists like Charles Lindbergh and supported civil rights for blacks and Jews. He also staunchly supported America’s war effort.” Seuss’ work vilifies the Japanese by representing them as ugly, ignorant and evil. Do you think Seuss’ depictions are justifiable? Crow observes about the cartoon shown here, “It shows an arrogant-looking Hitler next to a pig-nosed, slanted-eye caricature of a Japanese guy. The picture isn’t really a likeness of either of the men responsible for the Japanese war effort – Emperor Hirohito and General Tojo. Instead, it’s just an ugly representation of a people.
Visual Propaganda is used to:
Symbolize an ideal
Appeal to emotions
To vilify an adversary
Self-aggrandizement
Send coded messages
