The second contention is that “visual image must conduct its contributions to argument in perfect isolation” (5). Yet, verbal arguments include a wealth of context, including the surrounding words and “a wide range of cultural assumptions, situational cues, time-sensitive information and/or knowledge of a specific interlocutor” (5). In the same vein, the authors identify three kinds of context for visual argumentation: immediate visual context, immediate verbal context, and visual culture. “Immediate visual contexts…encompasses more than sequences of images [like film and television]. In judging such contexts we must often pay attention to visual cures beyond a single message source. Elements of the ambient visual environment can be equally influential in providing contextual cures to the interpretation of visual materials” (6). The immediate verbal context involves words surrounding the image. Visual culture includes “different values, conditions of production, and habits of interpretation. Cultural conventions of vision in this sense include what it means to see, or to represent seeing, as well as changes in the meaning of particular elements of visual vocabulary” (7). The visual cultural context involves “the broad master narratives of design which are the background to more specific visual (or for the matter, verbal) texts which perpetuate or challenge those narratives” (7).
Finally, the authors question representation and resemblance and the claim that visuals are persuasive but not argumentative. They argue that representation and resemblance are different and that visual can, indeed, give reasons for conclusions as opposed to convincing someone to do something without giving reasons.
Key Word
- Argument: “provides a reason for conclusion” (3)