Visual Rhetoric
A Reader in Communication and American Culture
- Lester C. Olson - University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Cara A. Finnegan - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
- Diane S. Hope - Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Visual images, artifacts, and performances play a powerful part in shaping U.S. culture. To understand the dynamics of public persuasion, students must understand this "visual rhetoric." This rich anthology contains 20 exemplary studies of visual rhetoric, exploring an array of visual communication forms, from photographs, prints, television documentary, and film to stamps, advertisements, and tattoos.
In material original to this volume, editors Lester C. Olson, Cara A. Finnegan, and Diane S. Hope present a critical perspective that links visuality and rhetoric, locates the study of visual rhetoric within the disciplinary framework of communication, and explores the role of the visual in the cultural space of the United States.
Enhanced with these critical editorial perspectives, Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture provides a conceptual framework for students to understand and reflect on the role of visual communication in the cultural and public sphere of the United States.
Key Features and Benefits
- Five broad pairs of rhetorical action—performing and seeing; remembering and memorializing; confronting and resisting; commodifying and consuming; governing and authorizing—introduce students to the ways visual images and artifacts become powerful tools of persuasion
- Each section opens with substantive editorial commentary to provide readers with a clear conceptual framework for understanding the rhetorical action in question, and closes with discussion questions to encourage reflection among the essays
- The collection includes a range of media, cultures, and time periods; covers a wide range of scholarly approaches and methods of handling primary materials; and attends to issues of gender, race, sexuality and class
- Contributors include: Thomas Benson; Barbara Biesecker; Carole Blair; Dan Brouwer; Dana Cloud; Kevin Michael DeLuca; Anne Teresa Demo; Janis L. Edwards; Keith V. Erickson; Cara A. Finnegan; Bruce Gronbeck; Robert Hariman; Christine Harold; Ekaterina Haskins; Diane S. Hope; Judith Lancioni; Margaret R. LaWare; John Louis Lucaites; Neil Michel; Charles E. Morris III; Lester C. Olson; Shawn J. Parry-Giles; Ronald Shields; John M. Sloop; Nathan Stormer; Reginald Twigg and Carol K. Winkler
"This book significantly advances theory and method in the study of visual rhetoric through its comprehensive approach and wise separations of key conceptual components." —Julianne H. Newton, University of Oregon
Great theory information and variety of articles.
Too specific to rhetorical studies for the visual communication and media approach of the course.
The book is a reader filled with great academic articles from the discipline, and it would work well for more advanced students. However, the book does not offer enough guidance, structure, summaries, and activities for an introductory level undergraduate course (which is also a core/general requirement class). Our visual rhetoric students would benefit from a visual rhetoric textbook that would help them understand these academic articles; they struggle with reading them. So, while great readings, will not work for our class.
very interesting book may be used in a different course design thinking
I'd prefer something a little more hands on.
For my semiotics course I decided to use an online text along with personally chosen online content.
Sage College Publishing
