修辞和形象摄影rhetoric and iconic photography

Rhetoric and Iconic PhotographyJacob DickersonVisual RhetoricFebruary 26, 2009Overview What is an icon? What is iconic photography? How do iconic photographs work rhetorically? How can we use this?What is an Icon? A sign that “makes you think of something else because the sign resembles that thing” (Brummett, 2006, p. 10). “An image that refers to something outside of its individual components” and “has great symbolic meaning for many people” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2009, p. 36). The word icon “is applied to a wide range of images . which articulate varied yet overlapping cultures” (Hariman and Lucaites, 2007, p. 27).Some IconsWhat is Iconic Photography? “Photographic images that are widely recognized and remembered, are understood to be representations of historically significant events, activate strong emotional identification or response, and are reproduced across a range of media, genres or topics” (H&L, 2007, p. 27).What is Iconic Photography?What is Iconic Photography? Hariman and Lucaites (2007) also point out that iconic photos have five particular elements of visual rhetoric: Aesthetic Familiarity Civic Performance Semiotic Transcriptions Emotional Scenarios Contradictions and CrisesHow Are These Images Rhetorical? They can “articulate and shape public knowledge through offering interpretive and evaluative versions of who does what to whom, when and where” (Gallagher and Zagacki, 2007, p. 115).How Are These Images Rhetorical? They can “evoke common humanity that challenge established images” (Gallagher and Zagacki, 2007, p. 117).How Are These Images Rhetorical? They “may disclose particular aspects of human beings as they confront the world in the here-and-now” (Gallagher and Zagacki, 2007, p. 124).How Are These Images Rhetorical? They can make “visible abstract concepts such as democracy and freedom by showing their opposites” (Gallagher and Zagacki, 2007, p. 128).How Are These Images Rhetorical? They can serve as a “political catalyst” and urge a group to take action, such as in the case of the image of Emmett Till (Harold and DeLuca, 2008, p. 258).How Are These Images Rhetorical? Hariman and Lucaites (2007) state that “by staring into the image, one senses a higher power unfolding, and is lifted up into awe and moved to act accordingly” (p. 290).Where Else Can We Look? Hasian (2008) claims that Hariman and Lucaites have too narrow a definition of iconic photographs. He argues for “a more organic, contingent, holistic, and inclusive way of thinking about iconic images” and thinks “that many pictures that did not gain the attention of wire services can still be iconic” (p. 10).Where Else Can We Look?One Last QuestionReferencesBrummett, B. (2006). Rhetoric in popular culture (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Gallagher, V.J. & Zagacki, K.S. (2007). Visibility and rhetoric: Epiphanies and transformations in the Life photographs of the Selma marches of 1965. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 37. 113-135.Hariman, R. & Lucaites, J.L. (2007). No caption needed: Iconic photographs, public culture, and liberal democracy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Harold, C. & DeLuca, K.M. (2008). Behold the corpse: Violent images and the case of Emmett Till. In Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture (L.C. Olson, C.A. Finnegan, & D.S. Hope, Eds.). pp. 257-272. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.References Hasian, M. (2008). Iconic materials, hermeneutics of faith, and the postmodern reproduction of public democracies. Review of Communication, 8(1). 1-15.Olson, L.C. (1987). Benjamin Franklins pictorial representations of the British colonies in America: A study in rhetorical iconology. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 73, 18-42.Sturken, M. & Cartwright, L. (2009). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.Discussion / Questions