Blog Week 5A

Visual rhetoric is used to give the viewer visual images.  For example, when you see a picture of the American flag, what comes to mind?  First, you will notice the American standard color, "Old Glory Red" and "Old Glory Blue"along with the white stripes and stars.  The blue rectangle canton that holds the fifty whites stars, represent the fifty states that create the United States.  The thirteen stripes which represent the original thirteen British colonies which first colonized America. Any proud American should know what the significance of the colors represent, red - hardiness and valor, white - purity and innocence, blue - vigilance, perserverance, and justice.  You may also visualize the flag representing the land of the free, the land of opportunity, and most of all freedom.  Freedom is the most powerful right we have as Americans.  Some countries object on our variety of freedoms and would rather go back to the 4th or 5th centuries.  Freedom is what makes America, GREAT!   

Gazes are pictures, paintings, drawings, statues, and other visual aids to help the audience visualize. Rhetorical visual gazes can be described in many different forms. The main visual gazes that we as a class discussed, the first gaze is the 'familio' gaze reminds us of family memories or a small group of people you know very well.  It is the intimate memories that bond us.  Second gaze, the 'national' gaze for example where were you on 9/11/2001, when the Twin Towers fell?  It is tied into a common culture.  The third gaze, 'world' gaze the infamous Mona Lisa is taught through our world history classes along with who painted the portrait, Leonardo daVinci.  A 'consumer' gaze is targeted a certain audience/shopper.  How the item is presented to grab our attention.  The gaze is based on how we shop.  Another example is a 'travel' gaze, targets travelers and the activities you do during vacation or trips.  The Grand Canyon, Hawaii, and Japan are all exotic trips one can take to set on the travel gaze.  Finally, the 'political' gaze, especially right now when you hear about politics, you imagine Obama and Romney, and their race for the presidency.  There are many other gazes for different categories, however these that I have mention are the primary gazes.  I hope I have given you a visual and a understanding about rhetorical visual gazes.