The Animated Persuader

Abstract

Media are not politically neutral and political cartoons are no exception. Political viewpoints can be made clear through explicit argumentation, and through the more implicit use of visual elements. One prominent example that unites argumentation with the visual to produce political persuasion is America's first political cartoon, created by Benjamin Franklin in 1754, which frames the socio-political climate of the time with an image urging the British colonies to “Join, or Die” (Katz 2004, 44). The themes of political cartoons, despite technological progress, remain unaltered by way of their continual incorporation of “domestic politics, social themes and foreign affairs” (Kemnitz 1973, 83). While members of the academic community, such as Lester C. Olson (1987), support this connection between cartooning and persuasive rhetoric, there is much we don't know about how the persuasive arguments within political cartoons work.

Editorial Board

“…Famously, Banksy has taken the streets creating clear "narratives of global ethics, of an unfair world that needs reform, by juxtaposing familiar icons of western capitalism with icons of western imperialism (Brasset, 2009, p.232). Similar to cartoons (Moss, 2007), though, there lacks discussion about how persuasive arguments within street art work. An essential tenet of street art is the reclamation of public space "for the people," a goal with clear roots in the social and political activism (Saunders, 2011).…”

“…Additionally, it is evident that street art that is politically or socially charged often isn't neutral often taking sides or making a stance against the "other". When assigning meaning, Moss (2007) explains, "Persuaders often rely on binary choices" like judgments of good and evil and she continues to say, "persuasion therefor becomes the ability to persuade an individual in a positive or negative direction" (241). Is it possible, then, for a message to be rhetorically neutral?…”

“…It is implied, then, that the tropes are inherent to persuasion. Moss (2007), explains that "the without master tropes, the potential to persuade audiences decreases In this way, tropes help to guide an audience perception an action (Moss,241). Additionally, Burke (1941) suggests that the four tropes overlap each other in that when identifying a trope in a display, it becomes harder to ignore or dismiss the others (423).…”

“…Additionally, Burke (1941) suggests that the four tropes overlap each other in that when identifying a trope in a display, it becomes harder to ignore or dismiss the others (423). It poses a decision to either focus on one trope and discuss how is doesn't account for certain feature or elements of a display, or to integrate the tropes in a way to understand how they can work together to form a message (Moss, 2007). As a rhetorical study, this is a paper that will focus on a tropic understanding of how street artists elicit thought through their created images.…”

“…The four master tropes consist of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (Burke,411). These serve as organizing principles that aid in grasping the concept of specific persuasive arguments within a street art display, like that of cartoons (Moss, 2007). Burke (1941) describes metaphor as a rhetorical device that takes the form of perspective, and is "a device for seeing something in terms of some thing else" (421).…”