Abstract
In this paper, I defend two skeptical claims regarding current research on visual arguments and I explain how these claims reflect upon past and future research. The first claim is that qualifying an argument as being visual amounts to a category mistake; the second claim is that past analyses of visual arguments fault on both end of the “production line” in that the input is not visual and the output is not an argument. Based on the developed critique, I discuss how the study of images in communicative events can be carried out without the concept of “visual argument” and I illustrate this with two new directions of interdisciplinary research.
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- We Have Yet to See the “Visual Argument”
- Pow, Punch, Pika, and Chu: The Structure of Sound Effects in Genres of American Comics and Japanese Manga
- Multimodal Legitimation Strategies on TV Cooking Shows
- Between Fact and Fiction: Semantic fields and Image Content in Crime Infotainment programs
- Book Reviews
- Jewitt, Carey, Bezemer, Jeff and O’Halloran, Kay: Introducing Multimodality
- Archer, A. and Breuer, E. O.: Multimodality in Higher Education
- Bezemer, Jeff, and Kress, Gunther: Multimodality, Learning and Communication: A Social Semiotic Frame
- Norris, Sigrid, and Daniela Maier, Carmen: Interactions, Images and Text-A Reader in Multimodality
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- We Have Yet to See the “Visual Argument”
- Pow, Punch, Pika, and Chu: The Structure of Sound Effects in Genres of American Comics and Japanese Manga
- Multimodal Legitimation Strategies on TV Cooking Shows
- Between Fact and Fiction: Semantic fields and Image Content in Crime Infotainment programs
- Book Reviews
- Jewitt, Carey, Bezemer, Jeff and O’Halloran, Kay: Introducing Multimodality
- Archer, A. and Breuer, E. O.: Multimodality in Higher Education
- Bezemer, Jeff, and Kress, Gunther: Multimodality, Learning and Communication: A Social Semiotic Frame
- Norris, Sigrid, and Daniela Maier, Carmen: Interactions, Images and Text-A Reader in Multimodality