Lecture 7: Visual Narrative and the Media

Tutorial question: Why is narrative important when shaping a visual image to the audience?

In week 7, Chris Woo conducted a lecture on Visual Narrative and the Media. But first, what is narratives? Narratives is defined as story-telling. Visual narratives in this case became a very successful phenomenon that every society in acquainted in many different sorts of mediums, examples of these mediums are visual images such as still art and paintings, photographs, and comics all have its own purpose of telling a story. (Pimenta, Poovatah, 2010) Why is narrative important when shaping a visual image is because, without a story the image would be unclear and the purpose of the image would be lost.

Now, what are the components of a narrative? According to Lwin, (2010) a narrative has a dualistic  nature, in order words the narrative has a story and its discourse. The story is the "what" factor which are the content that includes the events, characters, time and location of the narrative. As for the discourse is "how" the narrative is being told, in this case the use of visual images such as pictures to tell a story. 

Take the image above as an example, it is in a form of a comic strip discourse. The story is told chronologically with each image having its own caption to explain the story plot. Using the word "splash" to give the audience a imaginary feel to the visual image that they are reading is also important because the audience is able to feel the reality of comic strip. Characters used in the comic strip is a very well known cartoon where their genre of work is comedy which gives the audience a clue to expect a joke. Therefore, this comic strip is a good example of what a visual image with a narrative would look like, it carries all the characteristics mentioned by Chris Woo in the lectures and the audience is able to relate to it.

In conclusion, it is important to have a narrative in a visual image for an audience because the dualistic nature uses the power of the plot, events, characters, time, and location to tell the story and the discourse is one of the most important factor to consider when transmitting the visual image. It can be in a form of photographs and historical art to tell the society a story. According to James, (2005) the discourse of story-telling is important although in the form of picture. For example the pictures from the political-cultural photographs from Budapest in The House of Terrors tells the visitors the story of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.

References: 

James, B. A (2005) Imagining Post-communism: Visual Narratives of Hungary's 1956 Revolution. USA

Lwin, S. M. (2010) Narrative Structures in Burmese Folk Tales. 

Pimenta, S., Poovatah, S. (2010) Design Thoughts: On Defining Visual Narratives. 

Lecture 6: The Ancient Art of Rhetoric and Persuasion

Tutorial Question: Before coming to class, bring a print advertisement that you believe persuades the reader rhetorically. Explain your case using the concepts learnt this week.

First and foremost, what is rhetoric? Rhetoric was introduced by a Greek philosopher, Aristotle who believed that the idea of rhetoric is a normal human behavior where in general all men for certain attempts during a discussion of a statement will maintain them by defending themselves. (Aristotle, Ross, Roberts, 2010) This idea of "defend" is called the arts of persuasion, where its purpose is to make people believe. In other words, according to Scott, (1994) rhetoric is an interpretive theory that frames a message as an interested party's attempt to influence an audience. These messages can be in form of written, sound, and in this case visual advertising. The interest  and purpose of the party (advertisers), is to persuade the society to buy, follow, and even change on how they should think.

The key to persuading an audience is by understanding the concepts of enthymemes, propositional arguments, and non-rhetorical persuasion. The concept enthymemes is defined as the participation in completing the construction of the argument an so in its own persuasion. (Hill, Helmers, 2004) In other words, this participation will persuade the audience unconsciously thus leads those who are watching to believe the participant's experience.

The Colgate commercial is a good example of enthymemes for the Malaysian viewers of ASTRO. The audience who are watching this advertisement will be persuaded without argument due to the sense of trust and this is the art of persuasion. The trust is formed when the audience is able to believe that a normal Malaysian individual is able to get good relief from the toothpaste. Therefore, this tactic will increase the number of sales and will advantage the company.

There is also the propositional argument which is divided into two parts: the deductive and the inductive argument. The deductive propositional argument is when the conclusion of the persuasion is from the logical results and the reasoning of the propositional premises. Using Govier's (2009) example, the first premise is: If global warning continues, parts of the polar ice cap will melt, second premise is: global warming will continue, therefore, the conclusion would be "global warming is causing the ice cap to melt." As for the inductive argument is when the propositional premise is given evidences therefore it is true. Using Fitelson's (n.d) example, there is a man in Cleveland that is 100 years and 11-months old in good health. The conclusion would be it is possible to be 100 years old in good health. These proposition arguments are concluded by the logic and facts given, therefore individuals are unquestionably persuaded.

And lastly, the non-rhetoric arguments as Chris Woo taught us is persuasion with force. Force is a strong persuasion, especially in the form of threat. A person will not have the time to think or argue with a threat, for example when someone threats you at the ATM for money the only logic thing to do is to give the robber the money.

With all of this explained, this leads to answering the main question: 

How does this advertisement use the arts of rhetoric?

This environmental advertisement uses the inductive propositional argument, using facts to persuade the audience like "fight against global warming" and "hundreds of thousands of trees to make disposable tissue products" these two sentences will grab the attention of the audience and consider the argument. The sentence "Tell Kimberly-Clark that you want it to stop destroying the Canada's Boreal forest" is a non-rhetoric argument, where the audience is ordered to do so in order for them to save the Boreal forest. In conclusion, using these two art of persuasion in this advertisement is successful in grabbing the audiences' attention by using the persuasion of words, facts, and visual images to win and defend the argument.

References:

Aristotle, Ross, W. D., Roberts, R. W. (2010) The Work of Aristotle: Rhetoric (9th ed.) New York, USA.

Fitelson, B. (n.d) Inductive Logic. Berkeley, USA.

Govier, T. (2009) A Practical Study of Argument. Belment, USA.

Hill, C. A., Helmers, M. (2004) Defining Visual Rhetoric. Mahwah, New Jersey. 

Scott, L. M., (1994) Images in Advertising: The Need of a Theory of Visual Rhetoric. The Journal of Consumer Research. Chicago Press. 

Lecture 5: Gestalt Effect and Schema Theories.

Tutorial Question: Name the three laws of Gestalt Theory and provide examples to illustrate you point.

The Gestalt Theory was introduced by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffa, and Wolfgang Kohler also known as the 'Big Three.' Wertheimer (1900) defined the gestalt theory as an outcome of concrete scientific investigation in psychology, logic and epistemology of the human nature and the human capability to engage and construct visual images. The word gestalt was a psychological term that is defined as "unified whole," with that Wertheimer's hypothesis was to determine the explanation as to why a station image is able to "produce unity." (King, Wetheimer, 2009) 

The phenomena of "unity" also known as apparent motion was developed from Wertheimer's self experience where he states that he noticed the more distant the telegraph poles, houses and hilltops along the route seems to be speeding along with the train. (Hunt, 2007) Wertheimer became interested in these movements of stationed objects that he formed a theory called the Phi Phenomenon. This phenomenon was an experiment to show how a stationed image or object is able to move due to speed, each image is a different movement and when spun it will show the movements like seen in real life or television.  

The Gestalt Theory also has its laws which is known as the Principles of Perception Organization,  to explain the Gestalt Effect. The Gestalt Effect is when the human eyes naturally groups objects together, the three laws of the Gestalt Effect are Closure, Proximity, and Similarity.

The law of closure is when an incomplete image, in this case dots has enough space to shape an image. Lines are not needed to complete the image as the mind is able to identify the incomplete image. 

The law of Proximity is when the proximity of the object shows an image, in this case the flower petals, leaves, and butterfly is in the proximity to show an image of a face.

And lastly, the law of Similarity is when the individuals often perceive an image as a group or pattern. The example above shows two images: a rectangle formed by square shapes and a triangle in the middle formed by squares. This law explains how the mind automatically grasps what the similarities of shape combine to shape another image.


References:

Hunt, M. M (2007) The Story of Psychology.

King, D., Wertheimer, M., (2009) Max Wertheimer and Gestalt Theory. USA

Wertheimer, M. (1900) Gestalt Theory: The Originals. Hayes, Barton.

Lecture 4: Visual Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics.

In week  4, it's all about visual syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. What do these three concepts mean? 

First and foremost, the definition of syntax according to Robert Valin Jr. (2001) which is also known as "syntaxis" in Ancient Greek, is a verbal noun which literally means 'arrangement' or 'setting out together' of words that are arranged to show connections of meaning.  In other words, visual syntax is the forming of words or sentences when seeing and object or image. For example: when a boy, no older than six who sees a dog on the streets will spell out the letters D-O-G as  he believes the letter D represents the dog. 

In this case, using Paul Martin Lester (2006) theory "Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication" is far more clearer as to why we need to understand visual communication. He believes that images now fill out everyday life, whether in newspapers, magazines, books and even clothing represents millions of words.  However, it does depends on how we perceive the image, for example: a man only exposed in semi-light. Therefore, our mind will automatically, analyze the image and give a visual syntax with the words, mysterious, dangerous, fear, drugs and so on.  

Second is semantics, according to linguist Lynne Murphy, (2010) defines semantics as "the study of word meaning." This is useful for analyzing visual communication because of four main factors: Kinesics is the study of body language, proxemics is the study of relationships, ethmology is the study of change in meanings due to time and space, and lastly semiotics the study of signs. It all ties to learning the human behavior on how and why they react to signs or images.

And lastly, pragmatics is defined as the set of rules that determines the perception of signs and images.  Rules such as codes, modality, the sender, the receiver, and context determine the changes in meaning of the signification and sign in visual communication. Firstly, codes are the ideology taught to individuals to understand what they see. For example: a car is a car, not a train. Secondly, modality is defined as the message that is transmit information, for example the perception of "who is the terrorists" the media portrays. Those who control the mediums of information are the senders, they have the power to transmit either corrupt information or justice information to the receiver to follow and conform to these values. Lastly, is the context of message: space and time changes the use of language. In modern society, it is now liberal to swear, however using the same word in different situations can determine what the person is actually saying. 

In conclusion, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics is used to understand visual stimulation with a linguist perspective. The phrase "a picture is word a thousand words" is very true in this week's lecture, syntax's concept of visual communication is about using letters as symbols of images. For example: C is for C-A-T by learning this at a young age, individuals imprint the words to the image automatically. These imprints in other words are semantics where the individual can relate meanings to the images they see, however, depends on the pragmatics. Pragmatics is all about the culture, ideology, and customs taught in society, where semantics will determined with what they are taught to accept and reject during visual stimulation.

Referencing List:

Lester, P. M. (2006) "Syntatic Theory of Visual Communication" 

       Retrieved from:

       http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html

Murphy, M. L. (2010) Lexical Meaning. Cambridge, United Kingdom. 

Van Valin, R. D., Jr. (2001) An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge, United Kingdom.  

Lecture 4: Tutorial Question (Cont.)

Tutorial Question: If all Visual Communication is subjective, why do we have to study it?

Subjectivity is defined as "judgement that is based on individual's personal impression, feeling, and opinion rather than external facts." Being subjective when studying about different societies around the world has its advantages: Firstly, it will be easier for students to relate when being subjective. Visual communication is all about understanding that perception changes according to ideology and cultures, therefore, having to learn and discover the similarities and differences can be tested in real life whether or not it can be proven the same.

Secondly, studying syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and semiotics requires students to be opinionated when analyzing the visual stimulation. The study of signs is all about the self perception and comparing it with others, individuals are brought up differently although in the same society culture and traditions are very diverse. Therefore, being subjective allows student to accept and not be close minded about other cultures.

Therefore, being subjective is very important to understand human behavior in this case how individuals react to visual communication. Different ideologies and culture requires student to be subjective and understand the reasons to why there is a diverse perception of visual stimulation.