This thesis sets up the problem of sight in a visual society, with the aim to answer how the visual makes itself known. The conversation starts on visuality, and where there are gaps in understanding. The first of two case studies examines the absence of sight, or blindness, both literal and figurative. Through a study of blind photographers and their work, this chapter examines the nature of perception, and how biological blindness may influence and inform our understanding of figurative blindness. The second case study examines what the improvement of damaged sight has to say about the rhetorical nature of images. This chapter examines various means of improving sight, using literal improvements to sight to understand figurative improvements in vision and perception. The fourth and final chapter seeks to sum up what has been discovered about the rhetorical nature of sight through the ends of the spectrum of sight.

Thesis advisor: Celeste Wells / This paper explores how the visual components of product placement in film contribute to the goal of generating a positive brand attitude. Past research in this field has overlooked the visual aspects of product placement in favor of focusing on consumer recall. To address this gap, this study looks at three recent films, and evaluates them using visual analysis. Analysis revealed that visual components of film such as color, contrast, and lighting, as well as the positioning of the product, such as focus, motion, and camera angle, directed viewers’ attention to encourage cognitive processing of the branded area of the visual. This study also found that the visual components strengthen the association between the product and the protagonist, which is essential to generating a positive brand attitude. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Communication.

Fashion is a site of cultural production where issues of gender, identity and consumerism meet. While the rhetoric of the fashion industry often remains focused on innovation at the expense of women's lived experiences, independent fashion bloggers provide a necessary cultural critique of its practices. However, as the fashion industry pays more attention to bloggers in order to engage their growing readership, bloggers’ oppositional role has become more complicated. To explore the current context of these women’s writing in relation to a powerful economic industry, I analyze the role that ethos plays as a rhetorical concept and analyze how it is used by female bloggers who write about women’s fashion. In light of recent scholarship and of the current media landscape, bloggers’ use of ethos is important to their work even as it is complex and contradictory.

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This thesis project seeks to answer the question of how visual rhetoric put forward in social media content by pro-life and pro-choice organizations may persuade their audiences’ perspective on abortion. Using Sonja Foss’s guidelines for analysis of visual rhetoric, I analyze 24 selected examples of Facebook content posted by two pro-life organizations (Human Coalition and Feminists for Life) and two pro-choice organizations (Planned Parenthood Action and NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 2017. My analysis found that the visual rhetoric posted by both organizations on social media can and does function as a form of visual metonymy. Because of this, these visual strategies can stand in for more complex arguments in dramatic ways. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study examines sexualized portrayals of women in fashion advertising found in metro-sexual men's magazines as visual rhetoric. Historically, studies on sexual images of women in advertising have focused on content analyses of these images and how they affect women. This study asks how sexualized imagery of women functions rhetorically as part of a branding message designed to sell products. The exemplar advertisements were chosen specifically for their sexual imagery from an earlier study by the researcher on sexual images of women in fashion advertisements found in men's magazines. The messages interpreted within the visuals of this study reveal a current slice of history in terms of gender and sexuality. In the case of this study the constructed "ideal" heteronormative view of gender, masculinity, femininity, and sexuality are what are for sale; they are the merchandise to be purchased. Women are present in the exemplar ads as an accessory to prove and support heterosexual masculinity through sex, as if to ward off any ideas that metro-sexual men may be anything but heterosexual. Though we cannot generalize beyond these five magazine ads, we can think of the exemplar ads as a small sample of contemporary culture. The narratives of these ads suggest that man continues to be the prevailing figure in terms of importance and power relative to woman, who is subordinate to man. This thesis supports prior research on women in advertising where men are more important than women, and the ads in this thesis continue to define masculinity and femininity in classic patriarchal and heterosexual terms. However, this thesis adds important critical-interpretative work through visual rhetorical analysis on advertising in men's metro-sexual magazines to a body of research that includes very little of such work.

Within the existing research about communicative devices within visual rhetoric, most published research exists regarding two-dimensional design such as documents and media graphics. In this paper, I discuss the rhetorical value of handmade items and specifically speak to the ethos that three-dimensional, tangible handmade products inherently possess based upon their visual aesthetic.

This thesis is a qualitative study in which 12 award-winning printed adverts, awarded with either a Swedish “Guldägg” or an international Clio Award, have been analyzed from a rhetorical perspective. Visual rhetorics were used to analyze the adverts in order to expose the rhetorical concepts and to find out whether the rhetorical concepts represented in the Swedish adverts are the same concepts represented in the international adverts. One of the conclusions drawn is that pathos-arguments, a rhetorical concept where the senders allude to the emotions of the receivers, are the most prominent in both Swedish and international adverts, but are used in different ways. Another conclusion drawn is that the adverts are overall characterized by their messages not being explicit. This is a rhetorical concept being used in order to stand out in today’s media flow.

This thesis endeavors to examine the imagery and rhetoric surrounding the portrayal of President Barack Obama during the national debate over health care reform from the summer of 2009 into the spring of 2010. It is argued that the critics of the health care reform legislation used images to portray the president as Adolf Hitler, Che Guevara, The Joker, as well as other images such as the swastika and the Wehrmacht symbol as stand-in euphemisms for race to discredit Barack Obama. A number of exemplar images have been selected from various websites and publications specifically addressing the portrayal of Barack Obama not only in starkly menacing tones, but also in images suggesting the president is a villainous black man attempting to pass for white in order to accomplish his tyrannical goals. The images used in this thesis speak to the power of fantasy themes and the use of fear in rhetorical imagery inasmuch as they attempt to stoke a narrative seizing upon the anxieties of an American public caught in the grip of difficult financial times, finding themselves being led by the nation’s first African-American president. This thesis complements earlier research exploring the role of race in politics and public policy debates. And it is hoped this work will contribute to a better understanding of the growing influence of talk radio, as well as perhaps the need for greater civics literacy.