Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Ad vs. Cartoon

The cartoon uses the genre known as visual arguments. Visual arguments can be photographs, political cartoons, drawings or anything that isn’t accompanied by text. As stated on page thirty-seven of Writing Arguments, “Visuals make strong emotional appeals, often reducing complex issues to one power perspective.” There are other forms of genres, such as the blog that I am completing now, but the genres vary depending on the audience. The ad uses evidence to support their claim, as well as a visual aspect. The genre that the ad uses would be the public affairs advocacy advertisements because its published as posters, fliers and paid advertisements which use condensed arguments to influence the audience opinion on certain issues.

In these two cases, the powerful perspective is solely aimed on the purpose of genetically engineered food. The political cartoon on page one has a hippy holding a piece of corn saying, “you don’t want this it’s genetically modified.” To me, this implied the controversy that genetically modified food has surrounded. The cartoon represented nature, and even the poor or homeless should not be deprived of nutritional foods. The ad showed that there was a hidden message, that we were all missing, and that everything that is genetically modified should be labeled and that the ad is modified to fit the average consumer.

1 comment:

Kwame Newton said...

I think that although you accurately explained the genres of the cartoon and the advertisement, you didn't focus enough on how they influence the argument; you appear to have focused exclusively on the differences between the genres, but nonetheless, good post.