Sonja K. Foss (1994) offers a novel and useful approach to analyze and understand the power of visual images by following a rhetorical schema to evaluate the specific images. This dissertation will not provide a history of visual rhetoric and visual imagery within the discipline of rhetoric as it is well-established in the field. In addition, the researcher will not discuss the affinity between rhetoric and visual symbolism.
As a brief overview, rhetoric is the use of symbols to communicate with an intended audience (Foss, 2005). Visual rhetoric emerged in 1970, thereby expanded the study of rhetoric to include not only the discursive and verbal but also the non-discursive and non-verbal (Foss, 2005). Today, advertising images, among others, constitute a major part of the rhetorical environment.
By taking into account the visual images, it provides scholars with the tools to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the extensive power an image has when it is presented to the audience. The specific narrative created by public relations professionals in corporate advocacy campaigns continues to remain relevant. However, the visual images have the
potential to be increasingly more powerful than mere words. This is, in part, due to the fact that visual images provide access to a range of human emotions and experiences that may not be possible to access solely via written discourse as experiences tend to be more multidimensional (Foss, 2005).
The innovative framework to examine visual rhetorical frames within public relations campaigns provides a necessary tool to assess the persuasive impact of the visual component of the messages. Moreover, this perspective allows scholars to determine whether the images in a specific campaign convey the intended message.
Foss (2005) further noted that visual rhetoric is a communicative artifact, as the symbols (such as an advertisement) are used as the means for the intended communication. It remains both relevant and appropriate to then analyze the image’s symbolism. There are three
characteristics required for an image to qualify as visual rhetoric. The image must satisfy all of the following: (1) be a symbolic action; (2) involve human intervention; and (3) be presented to
an audience to communicate (Foss, 2005, p. 144). Regarding symbolic action, it is required to go beyond the sign, thus using arbitrary symbols to communicate. Human intervention requires human action, such as either creation or interpretation as a conscious decision to communicate which requires the selection of strategies to effectuate such communication. Lastly, the audience requirement does not mandate a large audience but rather this requirement is satisfied even if the only audience member is the creator of the image (Foss, 2005).
Visual rhetoric is also characterized as a rhetorical perspective with the focus being on three aspects of the image (Foss, 2005). The three aspects are the following: (1) the nature of the image; (2) the function of the image; and (3) the evaluation of the image. Foss (2004) elaborated on these aspects by noting the importance of the symbolism inherent in visual images in
conjunction with surrounding features such as media format, colors, and text. The nature of the image takes into account the literal components of the image, including the quality and nature of the image as well as the substantive and stylistic components. Meanwhile the function can refer to the emotions evoked when viewing the image, including the communication effects the image serves for the audience. Lastly, the evaluation of the image refers to an assessment of how effective the message was communicated, thus determining whether the image served its function (Foss, 2005).
The analysis and evaluation contained in this dissertation becomes relevant as well for scholars of environmental communication. When engaged in an in-depth examination and analysis of a particular public relations campaign, scholars develop a more comprehensive understanding of how messages are construed. This can be effectively utilized when explaining complex environmental issues to an uninformed public, such as climate change and genetic
engineering (Meisner & Takahashi, 2013). Therefore, it is beneficial to explore these
relationships between public relations strategies and tactics and their impact on how, and which, stories reach the media agenda (Cho & Benoit, 2005; Werder, 2006). When a story makes the journey down the media tunnel, the information gains credibility and raises the level of
awareness about that issue in the minds of the audience who then are primed to receive that message as framed by the persuader (Werder, 2006). In conjunction with the Process Model framework as conceptualized by Hazleton & Long (1988) to examine the written discourse, Foss’s framework is quite useful to comprehensively understand the nuances inherent in a multimodal strategic communication campaign. In so doing, existing public relations theory becomes interconnected and embedded within this novel context and framework taking into account both the visual and written content of a strategic communication campaign.
As such, a visual rhetorical analysis will be incorporated in this dissertation to characterize the images used in the “No On 37” campaign television spots according to the nature, function and evaluation aspects of the artifacts. An assessment will be made as to whether those three aspects of the visual images lend themselves to support a finding that the “No On 37” campaign is an example of an ethical or ethically problematic public relations campaign. Since visual design is a form of political expression, it has direct effects on an
audience as the images embody a particular ideology, constructs a specific narrative and point of view for the audience to accept and adopt as one’s own. Therefore, one cannot discount the role of ethics in this context, including but not limited to the ethical responsibility of a public
relations designer who creates a campaign that serves to communicate with an audience, while also creating a truthful, accessible and transparent written and visual message.