Visual Rhetoric

There are a lot of interesting thoughts in everyone's blogs about the impact that words and images have when used together for advertising and other purposes. It's amazing how much impact advertising can have on someone without them even realizing it! Using pictures along with words in an advertisement makes it much more effective than just written words would be because images can have a very personal effect on people. For example, the ad speaking out against Ebonics has the power to elicit strong emotion with just a quick glance because of the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that you see behind the words "I has a dream". The people who created this add knew that the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paired with a play on his famous words "I have a dream" would strike an emotional cord in countless people and catch their attention enough to read their plea which is written in very small print at the bottom of the ad. It's amazing how much the advertisements all around us try to manipulate us to do what the advertizer wants, it's good to be more aware of it!