How does the rhetoric of the posters attempt to engage with the audience?
The Hunger Day campaign posters indicate a strong emphasis towards the viewers of the posters.
Different groups of people are represented in the campaign pictures and slogans, but they all seem to serve the purpose to catch the interest of the individual viewer. They are the main receiver of the campaign messages and the primary actor in the campaign poster representations. After determining the systematic emphasis on the role of the viewer, the analysis continued with evaluation of the strategies used in the posters to engage with the viewer. The verbal and visual content of the posters were evaluated to study the visual rhetorical devices used in the campaign data.
In most of the campaign posters, the slogans communicate directly to the person viewing the poster.
This is evident in the continuous use of the singular personal pronoun ‘you’, which is used in different contexts in nearly every campaign poster of the data. From the total 68 campaign posters, 58 include a direct verbal reference to the viewer. These direct references appear throughout the data and they are located both in the headlines and in the footnotes of the posters. A minority of 10 posters does not include a direct reference to the viewer, but these posters do not generally include much text at all.
These posters include either the name of the campaign or the organization, or a short message such as “Thank you!”. Some of the texts also include a slogan with a play on words or use of passive voice instead of a direct message to the viewer. Hence, it seems that there is a common tendency in the Hunger Day campaign language to speak directly to the person viewing the poster, and to refer to these people by using the singular ‘you’.
In many of the posters, the references to the people viewing the poster stand out especially strong due to the selected style of the language. In Finnish grammar, grammatical cases can be used to indicate the subject in a sentence. Therefore, an actor can be identified with the use of grammatical cases, making it often unnecessary to mention the related personal pronoun such as ‘she’ or ‘you’. However, if the personal pronoun is mentioned anyway, it emphasises the actor already identified in the sentence. In my interpretation the campaign language in the Hunger Day posters seem to emphasise the personification of the viewer with the excessive use of the word ‘you’. In many of the analysed campaign slogans the subject ‘you’ is mentioned even where it is not necessary for the clarity of the message. In addition, the direct message including ‘you’ is often printed with a large font size, making it stand out visually as well. Therefore, I examined the nature of direct communication in the posters by determining whether the vocabulary in the references seemed to be neutral or emphasised. I categorised the references ‘with emphasis’ in the cases where the actor was separately mentioned,
and when the reference was printed in a larger font size. Based on these criteria, around 1/3 of all direct references seemed to include verbal or visual emphasis. Thus, it is evident the focus of the viewer occasionally reinforced through methods of accentuation in the data. This observation suggests a conscious intention to directly communicate to the viewer.
Examples on the use of direct verbal references to the audience, with the original Finnish versions on the side.
1991: Your move. – Sinun siirtosi.
2003: Helping with your help. – Apua sinun avullasi.
2012: If you help it will be alright. – Ei hätää, jos sinä autat.
2015 [A picture of a Red Cross field worker.]: He is there. You decide if he can help. – Hän on paikalla. Sinä päätät, voiko hän auttaa.
2018: Your donation enables the Red Cross help disaster victims in Finland and overseas. – Sinun lahjoituksesi ansiosta Punaisella Ristillä on valmius auttaa katastrofien uhreja Suomessa ja maailmalla.
In addition, authoritative and persuasive voice appears frequently in the campaign language. The campaign language directed to the audience is often reinforced with strong expressions of call to action. For example, the campaign language uses the following phrases to urge the viewer to act in a certain way:
1983: Share your meal with he. – Jaa ateriasi hänen kanssaan.
1986: Act against hunger. – Toimi nälkää vastaan
1992: Give the means for survival. NOW! – Anna elämän eväät. NYT!
2006: Donate next birthday. Volunteer as box collector. – Lahjoita seuraava syntymäpäivä. Tule kerääjäksi.
2009: Be like Heikki. Volunteer as box collector. – Tee kuten Heikki ja tule kerääjäksi.
2011: Collect hunger away. Volunteer or donate. – Kerää nälkä pois. Tule kerääjäksi tai lahjoita.
2014: Donate for Hunger Day. Keep the worst from happening. – Lahjoita Nälkäpäivänä. Jotta pahin ei tapahtuisi.
2018: Care. Donate. Help. – Välitä. Lahjoita. Autat.
The examples show that the Hunger Day campaign texts aim to engage with the viewer with direct verbal messages. The attention of the viewer is sought with messages targeted to the viewer personally, and the viewer is encouraged to act by describing a specific course of action. The verbal messages work in cooperation with the campaign pictures. As noted in the previous chapter, the majority of the pictures represent receivers of help. Many of these pictures send a powerful message of human suffering. The receivers of help are often portrayed in the context of natural disasters and war, and the people photographed appear to experience hardship. Many of the pictures are close-up images of human faces looking directly to the camera. The people in these pictures look directly at the viewer, almost urging them act to alleviate their suffering. However, not all pictures send a negative message. Some pictures portray a message of happiness and safety experienced by those who have received help.
Ari Räsänen (2013) has used the same data of the Hunger Day campaign in his master’s thesis to discuss the ideas of global solidarity and global citizenship. When studying the ways to connect with the viewer, the findings of Räsänen support my own observations. According to Räsänen, pictures of other people, emotional messages, and direct messages targeted to the viewer are used in the campaign to connect with the audience. These strategies can create a sense of global belonging, which in turn is necessary for the success of the campaign. (Räsänen 2013, 75–76.) In my research, similar verbal and visual strategies encourage for individual participation.
Figure 5. Figure 6.
Figure 7. Figure 8.
Figure 9. Figure 10.
A direct request to the viewer (58/68 posters)
“Hunger Day campaign.
Figure 5. Donate next birthday. Volunteer as box collector.” (2006)
Figure 6. Direct request to the viewer with emphasis on ‘you’: 21/58 cases “Your move” (1991) Figure 7. Other campaign slogans / use of passive voice. “Eleventh hour.” 10 / 68 posters (1985) Figure 8. Direct request for the viewer. “Collect hunger away.” (2011)
Figure 9. Imagery of humanitarian crisis “Help conflict victims” (2017) Figure 10. The safety provided by receiving help. “Care. Donate. Help.” (2018)