VR Post #2: Postmodern Visual Rhetoric

Rice, J. (2004, January/April). A critical review of visual rhetoric in a postmodern age: Complementing, extending, and presenting new ideas. Review of Communication, 4(1/2), 63-74.

Rice's essay summarizes and critiques two principle theorists--Sonja Foss and Valerie Peterson--and attempts to extend their theories of visual rhetoric to provide a heuristic for the analysis of visual artifacts. Rice limits his essay to a postmodern context, which he characterizes as one ring of "the large and hard-to-hit bull's eye of visual rhetorical theory" (73). Extending this analogy, he states that "Foss shot wide, Peterson used a smaller gauge, and the approach taken here is more of a rifle approach" (73).

Rice begins the essay by critiquing Foss's schema as too deductive. Foss suggests a critic first "determine the function of a text," secondly "scrutinize the composition of the visual artifact," and third "scrutinize the function of the art, measuring its legitimacy or soundness" (65). Rice briefly summarizes Peterson's critique of Foss and then presents Peterson's schema, which "basically reverses the first two steps, making the sequence more inductive" (65). Rice thinks that both schema are too linear and methodical for postmodern analysis, and suggests that he intends to "fuse a variety of ideas and schemas into a complex, multidimensional perspective" (66).

At this point, Rice introduces "the omniphistic visual schema," which contains "two planes of perception, content and form" (66). Rice states that "omniphistic" means "all in balance" and combines rational and intuitive aspects (73). Rice suggests that an omniphistic approach can integrate rationality, sensation, interpretation, and intuition in a way consistent with postmodern thought. Rice also explores what he calls "abductive thinking" (67), which he compares to connotation and argues "precedes both induction and deduction and exists as an 'origin of knowing,' which begins with visual observation before anything else" (67). A fair summary of this section of the article is that Rice is attempting to elevate subjective and intuitive aspects of visual analysis to counter what he sees as overly rational and methodical approaches.

Rice then discusses "four indicators of a postmodern visual text" (69). These are oppositional elements (internal conflicts); co-constructed elements (interactions between the text and audience); contextual elements (interactions between the text and context); and ideological elements, which "focus on text and all its surrounding elements, which results in a revelation of rhetorical power" (72), the analysis of which must be saved for last.

Despite his claims of being as specific as a rifle shot, Rice's essay is extremely hard to grasp. Part of the reason is probably that he is operating from a postmodern viewpoint that is inherently slippery. In other words, some of the difficulty in this essay is probably by design. Rice borrows an analogy from Foucault--a toolbox--and suggests that rather than attempt to use the methods of visual analysis he lays out wholesale, that it might be better for the reader to pick and choose the tools that are useful in a given situation. Rice writes that "if some small part of the ideas [in the essay] aids in the analysis and understanding of text, so much the better" (73). It is an interesting essay, and it is possible that some of his methodology (which he explicitly resists describing as a methodology) might be useful for visual analysis. I particularly liked his efforts to raise the intuitive as worthy of analysis. However, the essay is also vulnerable to one of the big critiques of postmodern thought: Rice's commitment to avoid proscribing a methodology or schema and his essential throwing-up-of-hands, take-what-you-want ending leave the reader confused of what to make of it. His critiques of other methodologies are good, but he is reluctant to put anything firm in their place.

Sehmel, H. (2002, June). Websites and advocacy campaigns: Decision making, implementation, and audience in an environmental advocacy group's use of websites as part of its communication campaigns. Business Communication Quarterly, 65(2), 100-107.

This article summarizes case-study research she performed in which she examined how a small environmental advocacy group used its website. Sehmel states that she hopes the article will “provide people working in small organizations with information about how they might improve the decision-making processes they use regarding their Websites” (100), especially those groups that “sell ideas, rather than products” (100).

Sehmel critiques existing research as being primarily focused on larger organizations with substantial publication departments. Additionally, Sehmel alleges that existing research inadequately explores how organizations integrate web publications with other communication tactics. For her case study, she conducted interviews of four out of five members of the advocacy group as well as the webmaster, who worked on an hourly rate and was not part of the company. She observed several planning meetings, analyzed planning e-mails, and analyzed the organization’s website. Finally, she surveyed visitors to the organization’s website and participants in the organization’s e-mail list.

Sehmel found that although the group had clear goals for its websites (which the websites seemed to support), the group experienced other challenges. For example, the employees did not have a clear grasp of the alternatives available to them, nor feedback on the choices they made that would “enable them to become more expert rhetoricians on the Web” (104). Several factors Sehmel states are likely to be experienced by other small organizations, such as the following (105):

• ·         Employees have no training in web design.
• ·         The webmaster is perceived as a technical expert rather than a rhetorician.
• ·         The organization has limited knowledge of its web audience and little feedback about their web communications.
• ·         The organization has limited time and money.

In Sehmel’s estimation, these limitations did not result in a failed website, but rather one that did not live up to its potential. Sehmel suggests that “researchers encourage groups to conduct some of their own research and to support them in conducting it, thereby helping them learn more about their audiences and about whether the choices they have made worked for them” (106). While this is an interesting suggestion, it is difficult to see how very many groups could take advantage of the opportunity to partner with a researcher, especially those organizations that are based in areas far from a research university. Indeed, Sehmel’s implication section is the weakest part of an otherwise intriguing essay.

Ironically, what Sehmel recommends is very close to what I propose to do for my class project. As a “researcher,” I propose to work with my college to address many of the same areas Sehmel does by examining my college’s new websites, flyers, and informational mailers targeting veterans. The group in my college that has been tasked with developing the materials shares many characteristics with Sehmel’s environmental advocacy group—limited resources, limited experience in web design, and imperfect feedback processes to gauge the effect of their communications. I will be looking more at the documents themselves rather than the people and design process. Still, I expect Sehmel’s article will give me an idea of things to look for as I perform my own research.