Visual Rhetoric

Abstract

Visual rhetoric is a relatively new area of study that emerged in the late 1900s when rhetoric scholars recognized the increasing centrality of the visual in contemporary culture. There is no consensus on the definition of visual rhetoric; different scholars use the term in different ways. Broadly, it refers to the analysis of the communicative and persuasive power of visual artifacts. These artifacts range from two-dimensional images such as photographs, political cartoons, and maps to moving images in film or television. They also include three-dimensional objects like murals, as well as places, spaces, and bodies. Although much scholarship on visual rhetoric focuses on the communicative aspects of visuals, there are also a number of studies that examine cultural practices of looking and interpreting. While visual rhetoric borrows from various methods and disciplines that also concern themselves with the visual, such as semiotics, aesthetics, and cultural studies, this bibliography focuses narrowly on the branch of study that emerged from US rhetorical studies within the discipline of communication in the 1970s. This bibliography begins with pieces that hail from other disciplines in order to recognize their influence in thinking about the rhetorical dimensions of visuals. From there, it moves to suggest general overviews and anthologies of this area of study, as well as some methods to evaluate images. Finally, the bibliography focuses on different forms of visual rhetoric that range from photographs to bodies.