Sunday, December 2, 2012

TOW #12: Political Cartoon (Visual Text)

Obama/Romney Political Cartoon

I found this cartoon to be interesting because unlike all of the other cartoons on MSNBC.com, it is not clear who the cartoonist is praising. All of the other cartoons showed either Mitt Romney or Barrack Obama individually, but never showed them together. As a rhetorical device, I think that putting the (former) candidate Mitt Romney and the President Elect, Barrack Obama together was effective. The quote in the speech bubble states "Sadly, they aren't even replacement refs...!" referring to the September 2012 issue regarding replacement referees in the NFL. The speech bubble indicates that the refs can't do anything over the two fighting. As a rhetorical device, I think that the color-choice was effective by using red pants for Mitt Romney (republican: red) and blue pants for Barrack Obama (democrat: blue). Although this cartoon displays the message that everyone is watching the candidates, including the media which goes back and forth "reffing" between the two candidates, the author didn't bring their own political view in to it thus causing the audience to have room for interpretation. The fact that the football players are fighting over the "facts" shows that each candidate has altered facts in someway, and each is claiming that they are correct and the other is not. This is also effective to the audience because it allows them to believe what they want to believe, not just what is being told to them. The cartoonist, Nate Beeler for the Columbus Dispatch, did a good job at conveying his message to the audience.


Rhetorical Devices:
Color
Diction
Opinion

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