Blog Three

Through the reading “The Psychology of Rhetorical Images” by Charles A. Hill, he expresses to the audience how visual images we constantly come into contact with everyday weather it be through the television, internet, billboards etc could be used as rhetorical elements. Hill discusses many times throughout his article about persuasion and how images can be misleading to the eye even when we do not feel we are being manipulated. Hill uses examples such as reading about a starving child and how when we see a photograph it seems more realistic to the audience. Hill states, “The child in the photographs seems more “real” to us, and the photograph is much more likely to prompts a visceral, emotional response” (30).

It is one thing to read about a topic and quite another to see it. The advertisement I have chosen is of a Camel advertisement. The ad depicts a woman who is playing a very popular game among males which is pool. We see the woman’s sex appeal, and concentration in this image as she tries to conquer the game against what may be a male opponent. She also has a cigarette in the same hand as her pool stick, which can portray that she can play a male game just as well as a male. The ad appeals to males because males do in fact like seeing women kick back and enjoy the same interests as they do while keeping the sex appeal intact. The ad appeals to women because of the sex appeal the image represents, showing they can to have they’re men look at them as they look at this female. To some the cigarette in the same hand as the pool stick may not be manipulating them to smoke, but it very well is. Having a cigarette in the same hand as a pool stick can be considered sexy and yet feminine at the same time which may appeal to both audiences, which accomplishes the goal of selling their product. We see affect transfer taking affect in this in that it provides an emotional response to the image from both sexes, and when you have an image that can be sold to both genders it is very effective.



Reading through Hill’s article what he was explaining to the audience about Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment was a very interesting thought to grasp. Hill states, “Nevertheless, classical conditioning has been shown to work in humans, and research with advertisements has demonstrated the phenomenon that psychologists call affect transfer”(37). He explains affect transfer to be an emotional response from one object to the one being sold. When we see a unique and entertaining image we do not consider the thoughts or persuasions that were sought out to be accomplished, but they do in fact get accomplished.

Hill, Charles A. “The Psychology of Rhetorical Images.” Defining Visual Rhetorics. Ed. Charles A. Hill and Marguerite Helmers. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 25-40.