The Impact of a Visual Argument

As we already know I love the pathos argument. I believe it to be the corner of the rhetorical triangle that will have the most impact and affect your reader best. A visual along with your pathos-oriented argument is even better. It is almost subliminal. When someone looks at a picture or photograph they immediately believe whatever to be portrayed as fact. Its right in front of their eyes, how could it be false? Just like so many other things in our culture people don’t immediately look at a visual and question it. It’s not in our nature. I think the visual argument is strong in a negative sense though. Rarely is a visual used to portray fact. It will show something/one that is not typical. It won’t be what is happening to the majority. Or it won’t be what is truly happening in that moment (think tabloids). The visual argument is really ironic because when a person looks at a photograph they think, I’m looking at a snapshot of time it must be true. But if your using a visual, you get to decide what was happening at that moment. You are in control of what the visual is depicting. That is powerful. I think we are becoming a visual society because anyone with a brain has realized the effect of visuals and no if they want to portray something in a biased way they easily can.