October Blog Post: Visual Rhetoric

Way back at the beginning of October, the concept of visual rhetoric was introduced to the class. This immediately grabbed my attention because I find the whole concept to be very interesting. Advertising has an amazing ability to influence people in one way or another and for decades now, organizations have been turning to advertising to get their message out to the public and keep it there. In class we looked at an animal abuse advertisement and discussed how these advertisements heavily rely on pathos to really draw emotions from the viewer. One of the first things that came to my mind when discussing this were the advertisements for the People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Recently, the PETA organization has become a very popular animal rights movement group. You can find their advertisements almost anywhere and with them come mixed responses from viewers. While PETA continues to fight for animal rights, their attempts in creating visual rhetoric to persuade the public are creating a lot of controversy.


“Hooked on Meat? Go Veg” and “The Holocaust on Your Plate” Advertisements



Looking at the two advertisements above, the first things you probably feel are either shock or horror. PETA relies heavily on the use of pathos, one of the three appeals that we discussed in class. Pathos can be described as the emotions of your audience and it is no question that these ads definitely trigger some sort of emotion. The other two, ethos and logos aren't as commonly used in the ads. In the “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign, Logos can be found within the text on the ad discussing the relationship between the Holocaust and factory farming. Ethos is an appeal that PETA really struggles to employ within their controversial advertisements, therefore the public doesn't always take the organization that seriously.

Overall, I think that the PETA advertisements are a great example of visual rhetoric, the appeals pathos and even logos. I immediately made the connection between the two when discussing them in class. I really enjoyed learning about the concept of visual rhetoric and would like to look more into things like this.