Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Post # 7: Visual Rhetoric

The picture that I found is of a young girl on her computer reading something sent to her. The statement on the screen reads "I can ruin ur life. No 1 likes you! Loser!” The girl who is reading it had her hands over her face as if she is crying. This is an example of cyber-bulling and it is terrible to see. The fact that is a child crying because of the nasty statement appeals to the viewer’s emotion. I don’t know of anyone who enjoys seeing children hurt and this is obviously a painful experience. This photo pushes the viewer to feel bad for the girl and want to help prevent the situation from happening to other children in the future

The computer screen and background are slightly out of focus in this photograph. I believe this is due to the fact that the center of attention is supposed to be the child and the heartbreak she is dealing with. Although the words are what made her feel this way, the main idea of the picture is to realize how these words affect people. I think a lot of times people, especially kids, become more aggressive and abusive in cyber space due to the face that it is not face to face interaction. They cannot see how their words are directly affecting someone else and therefore it makes it easier to say and do malicious things.

The words on the screen, even though not the center of attention, are still extremely important to the picture. Rude and hateful comments are what cyber bullying is all about. Just one statement could alter someone’s life. These words appeal again to the viewer’s emotion. The use of abbreviations and internet slang help the viewer to realize that in fact it is most likely a child talking on the other end. No one wants to think that their child, or any child, is capable of saying those things to another person. 

No comments:

Post a Comment