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The 1960 election demonstrated the effectiveness of visual image on the political stage, and the visual rhetoric from Kennedy’s campaign has since been adopted by presidential candidates in later political elections. Visual imagery can be used to persuade audiences on the logos and pathos level, while lack of visual rhetoric has demonstrated to be not as effective in persuasion. Kennedy’s effective campaigning allowed him to beat an opponent who was far more experienced than him and had greater name recognition. Using television, Kennedy’s campaign appealed to middle-class and minority families, boosted his fame with name and face repetition paired with energetic images, and strengthened his frame on the debate stage. The Kennedy Jingle and Kennedy-Nixon debates all showed how television became a medium for visual rhetoric, while Nixon’s ads did not because of the lack of visual imagery.
Visual imagery on television is significant, because it serves as a powerful tool to persuade people and it tells a narrative. However, what is narrated is not always true nor is it the best for the viewer. Particularly during the recent election, there was an explosion of political memes which serves as a tool of visual persuasion using irony, sarcasm, or satire, but they’re not always true. Hence, the term “fake news” was recently popularized. Rather than focusing mostly on the visual culture that has shifted since 1960, an intelligent public should also learn to evaluate track record and facts. It is how we can get back to the issues, even if the world becomes a little less colorful.
12017-04-09T20:47:08-07:00Edwin Chau4dd36665f9fe2f9fefda7a4db937ccc1e3f546dfVisual Culture of the 1960 ElectionEdwin Chau7plain2017-04-10T11:45:52-07:00Edwin Chau4dd36665f9fe2f9fefda7a4db937ccc1e3f546df