IMAGES IN ADVERTISING - THE NEED FOR A THEORY OF VISUAL RHETORIC

In this article, past consumer research dealing with advertising image s is analyzed and critiqued for its underlying assumption: that pictur es are reflections of reality. The case against this assumption is pre sented, and an alternative view, in which visuals are a convention-bas ed symbolic system, is formulated. In this alternative view, pictures must be cognitively processed, rather than absorbed peripherally or au tomatically. The author argues that current conceptualizations of adve rtising images are incommensurate with what ads are really like, and t hat many images currently dismissed as affect laden or information dev oid are, in fact, complex figurative arguments. A new theoretical fram ework for the study of images is advanced in which advertising images are a sophisticated form of visual rhetoric. The process of consumer r esponse implied by the new framework differs radically from past conce pts in many ways, but also suggests new ways to approach questions cur rently open in the literature on the nature and processing of imagery. A pluralistic program for studying advertising pictures as persuasion is outlined.