Visual Arguments

Our society is quickly becoming a visual society, which means we are subjected to more and more compelling stories, day after day. Before, people would read newspapers which would provide a story, which also generally contained the bias of the writer. Many people, however, were used to this kind of bias and it was much easier to ignore within the confines of a written piece. Nowadays, we are subjected to image after image, whether it be of terrible deeds done by groups such as the LRA, or a political comic poking fun at the amount of pork in the last Stimulus Bill. These kinds of images are much harder to reject because images can easily appeal to our emotional side and, though they are generally not explicit arguments, they lead us to think of the argument from the point of the view the images creator wants us to think of. Though they are only images, and can easily be ignored, visual arguments can be much more persuasive than written ones.