Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to practice analyzing a visual argument related to your research topic. This will give you practice analyzing visual media such as commercials, infographics, comics, and advertising. It will also give you a chance to see how people are portraying your topic in media and popular culture. Finally, it will help you prepare to make an argument of your own.

Objective

Compose an essay of three to four pages that analyzes a specific piece of visual media related to your quarter-long research topic. This can be something like a piece of advertising, a comic, an infographic, or even a meme. No outside sources other than the piece you have chosen to analyze are required. However, you may use other sources if you think it would aid your analysis.

This essay should be in standard MLA format and include a Works Cited page citing the piece you are analyzing and any additional sources you choose to use. You do not need to worry about in-text citations unless you choose to use sources OTHER than the focus of the analysis.

Task

Choose some sort of argumentative visual related to your topic. The only criteria is that the image MUST be making an argument related to your research topic. Do not choose a random stock photo from Google images, for example, or you will have a very hard time discussing the images rhetorical situation because it might not have one.
Include the image at the top of your essay below the title.
Compose an essay discussing the following:
The images situation. Think about the pre-existing contexts and events that motivated its creation. Think about the issues, ideas, problems, or other motivations, that influenced the creation of the message.
The intended audience. Based on what you can gather from the situation of the message, as well as its content, its delivery and tone (for a visual, think of the tone as its attitude), think about the kind of people that make up the specific group that is targeted. Think in terms of demographic information: age, income, geographic region, nationality, culture, micro-culture, ethnicity, race, for example.
The purpose of the message. Consider whether the message is intended to inform, entertain, analyze, persuade, evoke a feeling, or associate itself with a set of values or emotions.
The use of rhetorical appeals including ethos, pathos, and logos. Describe the rhetorical choices that helped (or hindered) the rhetors (the communicators) effectiveness in building (or cashing in on) credibility or authority (ethos), or in appealing to an audiences values or emotions (pathos), or in appealing to logic, reasons, and facts (logos).
Other criteria you may consider: the use of text and persuasive language, use of color, shading, shadows, shapes, textures, illustrations, dimensions, angles, perspectives, distances, facial expressions, eyes, clothing, objects. In short, anything you can see in an image is part of its communication and can be analyzed.