Visual Rhetoric & Digital Politics III: Democrats

Visuals of Epic Proportions:

Democratic Heroes and Republican Monsters

The politics of emotion must appear
To be an intellectual structure. The cause
Creates a logic not to be distinguished
From lunacy
-- Esthétique du Mal

Politics is the struggle for existence
- Adagia

These two quotes from Wallace Stevens illustrate our political landscape quite well: the lunacy, the emotion disguised as logic, single-issue voters casting ballots for causes rather than candidates. Because political omnipresence is fast becoming the reality, political parties and action committees engaged in the "struggle for existence" must have a constant media space, a role fulfilled quite well by the World Wide Web.

One of the most overlooked aspects of the World Wide Web is the role played by non-photographic visual elements: banners, buttons, colors, and relational aspects of each. Biases established by print and television have made these blend into the background, just as a network logo and a small ink drawing do in traditional media environments. The power of seemingly minor visuals is subtle; however, the role they play is crucial: these messages pass into the brain unfiltered by the critical eye that looks for text and photographs. Because of this, these visual elements play an increasingly important role in creating the drama portrayed on the contemporary political website. Political entities with a strong web presence, such as the Democratic National Committee, use these visual elements to provide a setting that supports their particular message. Using principles of dramatistic criticism outlined by Roderick Hart (pp. 259-82), we can discover their rhetorical function.

The dramatic picture portrayed by the Democratic Party closely resembles the classical epic. The protagonist is defined by personal characteristics, painting a portrait of an individual embodiment of cultural identity myths. The antagonist is defined by verbals, that is, by actions serving as adjectives: his actions label his presence as monstrous, as the antithesis of the cultural myth. Perception of the cultural myth as "good" or "benevolent" is embodied in the very human actor of the protagonist; likewise, the embodiment of negative social forces must be antithetical to the human, and thus monstrous. The antagonist must be monstrous and powerful, but beatable by the human protagonist. The seemingly minor visual elements that appear throughout the Democratic Party's homepage establish a representative anecdote that identifies the characteristics of the cultural myth embodied by the Democrats. By serving an agonistic role, the visuals transform the Republican Party into the epic antagonist, a monstrous scapegoat embodying corrupted wealth, which is the root of America's contemporary political troubles at home - economic corruption - and abroad - the war in Iraq. Through this lens, the Party sets the stage for its transcendent message: if you vote Democrat, we will put an end to this corruption that is destroying our nation.

The foundation of the site lies in its background elements, the first elements to load: the banner and background colors. These graphical elements used to set the dramatic scene and character identity. The color blue, traditionally associated with the Democratic Party in American politics, is everywhere: blue comprises the background as well as the banner for eighty percent of the page. Photographic elements have a white background in the central information box. The rest of the page is red: an American political website would be remiss if it did not include red, white, and blue, but the red sidebar is cluttered with calls to action, and as a minor player in the page, red - traditionally associated with the Republican party - is clearly overwhelmed by the omnipresent blue. The hierarchical message is plain: the Democrats, even if not presently in power, are somehow stronger and better than the Republicans are.

The presence of American iconography throughout the page, as well as the use of American colors, establishes another portion of the Democratic Party identity: they are Americans, seeking to establish identification with other Americans. The banner is a deep, midnight blue, with a powerful, Romanesque font declaring the identity of the party in steely blue and gray capital letters: "The DEMOCRATIC PARTY." The turbulent blue, enhanced by a rippling flag, sets the stage for a coming storm. With the steely typeface, the banner's message is complete: the Democratic Party is establishing its identity as standing defiant against a coming storm, with the type establishing a classical republican (Roman) identity and setting the battle stage as epic in proportion.

The identity established by the Democratic Party thus sets the scene for its rhetorical message. Continuing the narrative requires developing the preceding hierarchical aspects and fitting them to the scene. The dissociative inverse of the implicit egalitarian values portrayed in the "Neighbor to Neighbor" iconography begins to establish the antagonistic relationship: because we support the everyday American, we are opposed to a social hierarchy that establishes privilege based on wealth. Instead of wearing suits and sitting in a boardroom or at a hundred-dollar-per-plate banquet table, the volunteers in the "Neighbor to Neighbor" picture are wearing blue jeans and sitting in a kind of institutional aluminum chair with which most Americans are instantly familiar: these are chairs we see in church basements, school auditoriums, and community centers nationwide.

Locative circumstances are among the most powerful indicators of importance in website design: the placement of navigation is relegated to the outside areas of the page, while the most important content is found in the center. The Democratic Party's most important associative visual element is a small, map-shaped icon of Iraq found in the exact center of the page. The visual rhetoric of the Iraq icon holds a number of associative and agonistic messages in its color, presentation, and features. First, the social implications of the color red, which in this case hold dual meanings of blood - for war - and politics - the Republican Party, are difficult to ignore. Whereas the map associated with the Democratic Party's "Neighbor to Neighbor" button had no borders and no traditional political parties, which implied unity and equality, the map of Iraq is unmistakably similar to an electoral representation of a "Red" or Republican state in campaign and election maps nationwide, even including a small white star indicative of the capital city. Iraq may not be a part of the United States, as the first scan of this image may imply; however, upon deeper examination, the concept of imperialism, of Republican colonization and politicization of Iraq, begins to coalesce.

With this single, nondescript icon, the Democratic Party is thus able to associate the Republican Party with a bloody, imperialistic war waged for political and financial gain. Imperialism for direct political and financial gain is antithetical to the egalitarian image embodied by the Democratic Party; add war to imperialism, and the life or death struggle necessary for epic drama coalesces. By associating the Republican Party with imperialism and war - and by demonizing the two - the Democratic Party dissociates itself from the corruption of the Republicans and implying a binary message: "The Republicans will send you to die for their gain," it says, "but we will not, because we will protect the everyday American."

Anticipating and counteracting the inevitable retort, that those who would flee this conflict leave the nation vulnerable to attack, the Democrats place the rhetoric of warfare and defensive strength throughout the site. The "Fighting Dems" button links the visitor to a page displaying Democratic veterans who are running for office, men who have defended the country abroad, who now fight for its future at home. More important than the "Fighting Dems" button, however, is another simple graphic that advises visitors to "Rebuild America," below which is a simple bi-color button reading "Democracy" in white on blue atop "Bonds" in white on red, and framed by stars. The explicit association of blue with "Democracy" becomes an agonistic visual praise by virtue of the implicit cultural association of blue with the Democratic Party. The lower half of the image, "Bonds," in white and framed by white stars, on a field of red, continues to cultivate the associational cluster relating the Republican Party to war. First, the colors, white on red, mimic the Iraqi map icon in the center of the page, and serve as a visual Homeric epithet: a repeated phrase used to attach descriptive characteristics within epic poems. Second, it establishes historical congruity with World War II, during which posters and advertisements, which have now achieved the status of cultural myth, advised Americans to "Buy War Bonds."

War bonds, implicitly associated with finances, provide the final step in the recursive series of images linking Republican corruption with the ruin of the United States: "bonds" are easily connected to Wall Street, high finance, and the "bond" market, thus bringing onto the stage the cultural stereotype associating the Republican Party with wealth and privilege, providing an additional agonistic associative tool by which the Democrats can demonize and scapegoat the Republican Party. This association is strengthened by a similar visual epithet found just beneath the "Democracy Bonds" button, a small navigational banner inviting visitors to a page exploring, "Republican Culture of CORRUPTION."

The identity of the heroic Democrats, who faithfully support the everyday American, is established by the setting: a strong, patriotic, populist hero, preparing for battle. The identity of the Republican Grendel is a classical epic antagonist: evil social forces embodied in a single entity without humanizing characteristics. The epic antagonist was defined by verbals, or actions masquerading as adjectives: he or they "did" x, y, or z before any physical description was given. In this case, the Republican verbals are portrayed through a recursive cluster of images that play active roles in defining what Republicans "do," and by implication, what Democrats "do not." Republicans sympathize with the wealthy. Republicans, having been so corrupted by money, in turn corrupt the nation that they lead, sending it to bleed and die for no other purpose than political and imperialistic gain, both of which add to their already great wealth and power, and by extension, their corruption as well.

Visual images on the World Wide Web provide setting and context, which in our media-savvy culture, textual and photographic content cannot: the messages of text and photograph pass through a filter of objectivity and judgment that background imagery bypasses. Their rhetorical value stems from their unobtrusive presence: we see them, but focus on the overt rhetorical messages in the text. The visuals on the Democratic Party website dramatize a transcendent "politics of emotion" in the guise of an "intellectual structure": if we keep Republicans in power, their corruption will only grow. Buy Democracy Bonds, which support the Democratic Party, vote for Democratic candidates, and the corruption that has threatened our existence will plague us no more.

Visual Rhetoric & Digital Politics Part II - The RNC

Before continuing with this entry, I suggest you read the introductory entry for the Visual Rhetoric & Digital Politics series, which will provide a good grounding for what I hope to discuss. I should note: this is a nonpartisan sequence of essays, meant to instruct readers who wish to learn more about the challenges facing deliberative discourse and cultural literacy in the digital era.

Although both major American political party websites display remarkably similar rhetorical features, the Republican National Party website [Link] is much more similar to traditional media genres in content and form; therefore, it presents an ideal starting point to examine the visual rhetoric of politics in the digital world. Distinctly “American” colors of red, white, and blue provide the background as well as the base for most icons and animations. As expected, the elephant logo of the party plays a prominent role in iconography, and an abstract American flag composes the banner at the head of the page. The generic expectations of visitors to American political sites, based in print and broadcast media, lead us to look past these icons as window dressing in a visually rich environment; however, if we examine their rhetorical value, we can see that they play a far greater role than that of “window dressing.”

Color saturation and modulation are completely the result of choices made by graphic and website designers, much more so than in a non-digital context. There are literally millions of color options available to designers, who merely have to enter a six-character alphanumeric code when creating a graphic or choosing a background (see w3schools.com for more). Given the distinct cultural associations of color and political party, the saturation and modulation of the colors red (Republican) and blue (Democrat) play a strong role in analyzing the visual rhetoric of the GOP.org website.

Upon first looking at the background of the page, we notice that blue is everywhere, which initially appears anomalous: one would expect far more red than blue on the Republican National Committee website. Looking closer, however, we notice that the background blue – even at its darkest, is quite pale. It fades downward into the white background of the rest of the body. This is neither coincidence nor a pleasing aesthetic device. Color saturation is an indicator of power and importance, and this blue is pale and insignificant, fading into complete absence. Red, by contrast, is dominant and fully saturated, and at no point in the background does it fade into pink or white. The top of the abstract flag in the banner is a full, rich red; even the field of stars, always blue on the flag, is red in this area.

Even more important than the dominance of red in position – always on top – and in saturation is modulation, or shade. The red on the GOP.org site is quite similar to blood: dark, rich arterial blood. When we examine the cultural connotations of red and blue, and the interplay of saturation, position, and modulation, the message created through color begins to clarify. We can extrapolate the weak – and weakening – saturation of blue into two subtle messages about the Democratic Party, long associated with that color. First, it plays into the notion of Democrats as weak – both on security issues as well as in character. Second, it evokes a message of political power: the blue fades away (runs) while the red remains strong. Republicans – like the red on their website – are dominating the political arena, pushing their weakening blue opponents into obscurity. Prominence, the display of red over blue, even in the starry field of the flag, only intensifies these messages. The modulation of red is calculated to imply a number of messages and symbolic undertones: red-blooded Americans, the blood of our patriotic soldiers overseas, and the lifeblood of the nation, the “heartland.” Although background is frequently overlooked, even here political rhetoric is actively evoking messages of strength, victory, and patriotism.

Logos, often considered relatively transparent, are recognizable rhetorical constructs: they are chosen to represent the perceived strengths of an entity, and they are refined throughout their existence to correspond with ideals and characteristics that said entity chooses to offer the public as it’s iconic “face.” The elephantine logo of the Republican Party is no different: elephants are associated with wisdom and power. The American flag colors are associated with patriotism – the blue of the elephant logo is the only strong blue on the entire page, but this logo predates the website by decades – and the transparent rhetorical presentation is of a powerful, wise, and patriotic party. A deeper rhetorical meaning hinges upon our understanding of the subvisual rhetorical message of the site: elephants are tough. Elephants are hard to kill, and they can trample those in their path. This association is much clearer in the “elephant breaks” used in the right sidebar of the page: two trumpeting elephants facing opposite directions with long, sharp points protruding away.

According to Kress and van Leeuwen, triangles, especially when angled like those in the break, “are a symbol of generative power . . . and represent action, conflict, and tension” (53). These triangles present the action of protection and a tension between the elephant and “outsiders,” which leads to the potential for conflict. The elephants in this pose are not the passive elephant of the Republican National Party logo. They are active: trumpeting and powerful creatures shouting a warning to all who approach. Their defensive posture offers two if-then ideational references: first, they protect their territory, a reference to the perceived Republican ideal of a strong military presence; second, they protect themselves, defending against local attackers from opposition parties.

The other icons present are, in the objective sense, representational maps of the United States, of which two are most interesting for identifying the subjective, rhetorical aspect of the GOP.org iconography. The first, which appears in the “Donate” animation, portrays the importance of local action in national politics. This map is the only graphic in which red saturation is less than complete, although upon close examination, the blue is still far more muted than the red. The implication of the map, stated within the animation, is that all could be lost if the visitor fails to donate to the Republican National Committee. The red is shown as stronger than the blue by far; however, it is somewhat faded, which gives it subjective urgency. The message of this map is clearly rhetorical: the blue (Democratic Party) is weakening, but the complete supremacy of red (Republican Party) is still questionable; therefore, visitors are asked to support the red by donating via the handy red “Donate” button which appears shortly after the map.

The second map renders similar messages in a different context. This map, at the bottom of the page, encourages visitors to get involved in party activities. Both red and blue are saturated in this instance; however, the saturation of the blue is far less important in this image because there is so little of it. What is important is the scope of the colors: blue (the Democrats) is strong only in certain “liberal” strongholds such as the northeast, the upper Midwest border, a strip of the California coastline, and a portion of the largely immigrant and Native American southwest. Hawaii is an insignificant blue dot appearing beside a gigantic red Alaska. The map is not rhetorical only in the sense of the messages it implies, but also in what it chooses to obscure in its representation.

This map, as an icon, is diagrammatic of two possessive attributes that the Republican Party wants the populace to witness: the breadth and location of Republican strongholds in the United States, and the relationship of those strongholds to Democratic ones. Although objectively, people understand that the red coloring of the heartland is not representative of each individual citizen, the nature of voting districts makes it an apt representation of political power. The message is that the majority of America is Republican. Americans are fond of charts, of maps, and this map shows that most Americans, especially in the mythical “heartland,” believe in Republican ideals. The locative circumstances displayed in the map are also rhetorical in the location of blue, or Democratic, strongholds. The Republican map creates a strong division (via full blue saturation) between the heartland and the elite urban northeast, the odd folks in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the almost-Canadians of the upper Midwest, and the immigrants and Native Americans of the southwest. The map narrates a difference: “their interests,” those of the Democratic areas, are not in keeping with the rest of America, or “our interests,” the interests of red-blooded Americans.

The rhetoric of the map is based entirely upon locative circumstance and implied narration. All maps are, in a way, rhetorical representations of subjective narration; the implied narrative of this map rhetorically obscures the fact of population. Although relatively small in area, the blue portions of this map contain almost half of the population of the United States. In choosing to represent Republican vs. Democrat bases in this manner, the Republican Party is able to obscure the statistics concerning popular support of their policies. Their map shows an America united in Republican belief, with only a few dissenting areas, instead of the deeply divided electorate that exists in fact.

The breadth of rhetorical messages in this brief selection from the GOP.org website demonstrates the need for rhetorical critics to look beyond traditional arenas when analyzing digital rhetorical artifacts. Theories grounded in traditional linguistic and photographic grammar are insufficient when addressing digital artifacts. The rhetorical power of a well made website, as demonstrated above, is not found solely in text, sound, and a carefully selected photograph. If our purpose as rhetorical critics is to defeat Twain’s maxim (see introductory entry), then we must closely examine all of the convergent rhetorical messages in a website, including - perhaps especially - the seemingly insignificant elements of background visuals, color, and iconography. Each has the potential to contribute to the rhetorical message, sometimes developing a narrative that the unwitting visitor fails to recognize, even after the message is absorbed.

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currently on miPod - "Adagio in E-Minor for Violin" - W. A. Mozart

Visual Rhetoric & Digital Politics

To understand politics in the digital age, we must be able to apprehend political rhetoric in textual, auditory, and visual elements, both individually and convergent. The textual and auditory elements of political rhetoric are widely studied; however, critics tend to dismiss much of the visual as textually dependent. When they do encourage the examination of visual elements within websites, they tend to examine them in the context of print-based media, looking at photographic selection and placement.

One of the more popular textbooks for courses concerned with the theory and practice of rhetorical criticism - Roderick P. Hart and Suzanne Daughton's third edition (2005) of Modern Rhetorical Criticism (Allyn & Bacon Press) - advises students engaged in a rhetorical critique of a website to ask themselves: "To what extent does the online artifact resemble offline communication? Are there clear generic parallels? Does this artifact borrow from more than one offline genre?" (p. 208). Questions such as these dismiss one of the most powerful tools of the digital realm: with software and hardware continually gaining capacity and capability, the visual enters the arena of message creation and transmission, providing not just photographic context, but also subtle taxonomy and iconography. In order to be fully aware, culturally literate citizens, able to engage in the more prudent and deliberative public discourse that is traditionally associated with democracy, we need to be able to critically engage all elements within a digital artifact.

The Internet is rapidly becoming a major medium in the political arena, an environment wherein people retrieve second-hand information with little examination of the visual rhetoric involved therewith. We can no longer address only the textual or auditory elements of political websites; as scholars and citizens, we must understand the messages conveyed by colors, icons, and animations within the website as well. This is the newest area of political information dissemination, and fully a third of the information conveyed is subtle and visual.

Inspired by the success of Internet-based political campaigning, national political parties have increased their web presence by a good deal in recent years. The cost of developing and maintaining websites and e-mail lists is relatively low in the political arena, and the benefits of web traffic and e-mail in fundraising and information transmission far outweigh any fiscal overhead. “Add me” forms and “Donate” buttons do much of the party’s fundraising and politicking passively, allowing viewers to perform actions that were far more expensive in the era of phone banks and mass mailings. The party line is textually available to all visitors; audio clips present the best of recent speechmaking; carefully selected photographs render party leaders in the best possible light. With these obvious and overwhelmingly dominant presences, based in traditional media genres, we easily overlook the interplay of color, background, and iconography, which lends great strength to them as rhetorical devices.

Over the next few posts, I'll examine the rhetorical features of color, background, and iconography on major political party websites.