Visual Analysis Protocol

What is the goal of Visual Analysis?

We can come to understand how the various elements within a visual

image work together to create a persuasive message when we engage in

visual analysis.

Visual Analysis Paragraph

A) Zoom in on the details of the visual image and take notes in a bulleted list.

1) Offer a detailed description of the objects in the visual image you are observing.

2) Describe how particular objects in the visual image relate to other objects in the visual image.

3) What symbols, representations, or allusions from culture come to mind when you view this visual image?

4) What is the social and/ or historical foundation of symbols, representations, or allusions?

5) Who is the author of this visual image?

6) What is the target of the inferences?

B) Write a 4-7 sentence paragraph that draws together all the information above

analytically.

In other words, what is the significance of the visual image in relation to texts, culture, and society?

Expanded Visual Analysis

Analyze the Rhetorical Context

1. Who is the text’s composer?

2. What is her or his role or position in her or his discourse community?

3. Who is the intended audience of the composer’s text?

4. What is the circumstance which prompted this composer to create this text?

Analyze the Visual Features

5. What structural mechanisms are used to draw the reader/ viewer/ listener into the text? How are lighting, sound,

music, voice over’s, special effects, editing, color symbolism, casting used to create audience interest?

6. What issue is being addressed? What is the text composer’s major claim or thesis?

7. What evidence or reasons does the text composer supply to support the claim? How good are these reasons or

evidence? Why do you trust or distrust the claims and evidence?

8. What makes the text persuasive or unpersuasive?

Place the Text in a New Context

9. How does this text relate to other texts you have been reading/ watching/ listening to? Describe similar patterns and

trends.

10. How might another text composer (or you) use this text for a secondary purpose? What would be your goal in

recontextualizing this original text?

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