Digital Digressions v2.0: Special Bonus Sunday Post About Rhetorics!

September 18, 2005

Special Bonus Sunday Post About Rhetorics!

This isn't another Katrina post. No-siree-bob! (Whatever that means.)

This is a post about visual and verbal rhetorics. Ooooooh! Aaaah!

This weekend, Josh Marshall challenged his billions of readers to paste together:

a copy of the Monday guitar image and then one from the speech last night. Caption one: 'When Lives Are at Stake.' Caption Two: 'When Politics Is at Stake.'

Here's one version of the resulting image/text mashup:

The text is different in the two versions (Josh's and the unnamed photoshopper's).

When lives are at stake. // When people are drowning.
When politics is at stake. // When politicians are drowning.

Now I know that many of you who read this blog are kinda academic-y. And the rest of you at least like looking at the colorful pictures. Which makes you all an ideal crowd to talk about this.

My question is this: which set of captions do you prefer and why? And for extra credit, what do you think about the background image?

Posted by reparent at September 18, 2005 5:54 PM

Comments

I don't know much about photography or layout, but the word choices are interesting to me.

The blog journalist suggests the use of a prepositional phrase with a PASSIVE feel to it ("at stake"). Meanwhile, the artist and/or PR specialist selects an ACTION verb ("drowning").

The blog journalist de-personalizes the message by suggesting the use of CONCEPTS like "lives" and "politics." Meanwhile, the artist and/or PR specialist selects HUMAN terms like "people" and "politicians."

I don't know what it all means, but there's a significant difference between the two.

Posted by: coeurlion at September 21, 2005 1:32 PM

In-deedly-doodly!

Very nicely done, Coeurlion!

Anyone else have any thoughts about the rhetorical choices expressed in this photocollage?

Posted by: Richard at September 21, 2005 9:09 PM