MOHAMMAD SYAHMIM BIN SHAHPERI

2013312779
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CPM564 - VISUAL PERSUASION

VISUAL PERSUASION: THE ROLE OF IMAGES IN

ADVERTISING
Advertisements are created for the purpose of seducing the audience
to consume by creating a certain illusion. The word advertisement is derived
from a Latin word advertere which means to turn towards, that is to get
peoples attention (Goddard, 1998:6). According to this abstract definition, a
road sign can also be an advertisement because it is supposed to get
peoples attention. Yet, an advertisement as it is rooted in our minds is
something more than just a mere object which attracts attention. The main
difference between a road sign and advertisement is that the aim of the
latter is a financial benefit, enhancement of status or image (Goddard,
1998:7). Now we are all used to being presented with advertisements that
evoke imaginary lifestyles associated with the products or that emphasize
the fashion ability of the product, or indicate the nature of the ideal and
typical consumer of the good in question (Rampley, 2005:138). In any case,
the advertisement seeks to sell the advertised product, service, idea or
image and to gain benefit. Likewise well argument and professionally
delivered speeches, good advertisements bear certain rhetorical properties
which

are

designed

communication.

for

the

sake

of

more

powerful

and

effective

MOHAMMAD SYAHMIM BIN SHAHPERI

2013312779
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Paul Messaris's second book on visual communication media-related

issues, like his challenges the conventional ways of looking at visual images,
questions the status quo of existing research in the field, and introduces a
meaningful and contemporary new perspective on reading visual images,
particularly the electronic media-generated ones.
Visual Literacy: Images, Mind, and Reality (see review in CJC, 21[2],
293-295)
It is evident from the start that Paul is strongly influenced by
semiotics,

structuralism,

and

contextualism,

three

visual

communication media theories generated in film and television studies

during the last three decades. Paul extracts the constructs that generate,
document, and support his own approach, which he describes in the
introduction of his book, and that constitutes what he calls the theoretical
framework of the analysis

of visual images in film and television

advertisements.
Missing from Paul theoretical framework, however, are the constructs
and often the entire theories stemming from the related fields of perceptual
and logistic psychology, neurophysiology, and aesthetics. It is impossible to
analyze

(semiotically),

to

evaluate

(structurally),

and

to

discuss

(contextually) film and television images that, unlike paintings, photographs,

slides, and so forth, are in motion, incorporate sound, and are generated by
distinctly different visual communication media, furnished by and operated
with unique to their own idiosyncratic nature, instruments, materials, and
techniques. Perceptually, cognitively, and compositionally the images
produced by the various visual communications media (such as film, video,
holograms, and computer-generated images) differ substantially. They are
perceived, recognized, and composed differently.

MOHAMMAD SYAHMIM BIN SHAHPERI

2013312779
AD2474A
CPM564 - VISUAL PERSUASION

This

important

factor

is

consistently

overlooked

by

visual

communication media scholars who center the analysis of visual images on

their apparent message. Of course, goes beyond the content analysis of
visual images produced by film and television commercials, attempting to
include in his examination such media production elements as fades,
dissolves, superimposition, and so forth, all of which are discussed
analytically in various parts of the book. This is one more positive aspect of
the volume.
Any mode of communication can be considered with either semantic or
syntactic properties. A semantically-oriented description focuses on how the
elements in a particular mode (images, words, musical tones, or whatever)
are related to their meanings. A syntactically oriented description is
concerned with the interrelationship among the elements themselves as they
combine to form longer meaningful units. Each mode of communication has
its own characteristic combination of semantic and syntactic features.
After a lengthy, yet concise, review, analysis, and exemplification of
the key semantic properties of images, described by pioneer semanticists,
and of the key syntactic properties of images. These involve the analysis of
the three properties of images: iconicity, indexicality, and syntactic
indeterminacy, which he considers as distinct attributes of visual persuasion.
The depth of his analysis is demonstrated here by the mature statements
made regarding the present and future implications of each of these
attributes of visual persuasion. For example, in his discussion of the
implications of iconicity (as a property of visual images and a distinctive
attribute of visual persuasion), Paul suggests that "iconicity gives advertisers
access to a broad spectrum of emotional responses that can be enlisted in
the service of an ad's cause". (Examining the implication of indexicality of
visual images (that a photographic

image can serve as documentary

MOHAMMAD SYAHMIM BIN SHAHPERI

2013312779
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evidence or proof of an advertisement's point). Lastly, underlying the

implications of the image properties of syntactic indeterminacy (which refers
to visual communication's lack of certain properties, rather than its
possession of others), ."The fact that visual syntax cannot be explicit about
such connections causal claims, drawing analogies, means that the process
of visual persuasion cannot include explicit arguments"

REFERENCE

http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1040/946
http://rudar.ruc.dk/bitstream/1800/5166/1/visual
%20persuasion.pdf