Visual Rhetoric Analysis Of ENGO’s Photographic Images In China

Visual images have played prominent roles in defining and interpreting the environment since the start of environmental movement.As one of the important agents in the environmental movement,environmental NGOs undertake important roles in constructing environmental issues and connecting the scientific community with the public.One of ENGO’s key strategies is to employ images to arouse the public’s emotional response in a bid to persuade.Greenpeace is a well-known organization especially famous for its image tactics and it has initiated several influential environmental movements in China in the past 20 years.Therefore,this paper takes the environmental images produced by Greenpeace in China as the research object,and adopts visual rhetoric as the theoretical framework to understand how this organization persuades the public with pictures.Firstly,the article decodes the elements of the image from five aspects.It finds that most images have the presence of human,in a way to connecting environmental issues to people’s daily life.Men has more presence than women,but female NGO practitioners appear the most.The majority of the images adopts high saturation color and a large number of color juxtaposes are used to enhance visual impact.Medium scenes and head-up viewing angle is most commonly used.Pure images appeared most frequently,while textual and pictorial narratives appear less frequently,but they all appear in various environmental advocacy campaigns.Secondly,the article analyzed rhetorical structure and rhetorical strategies.It finds that the images adopt metaphor,metonymy,cultural image,emotional mobilization,and articulation to persuade the public.Lastly,in the context of international arena and Chinese society in transition,it finds these images convey social and cultural meanings like environmental justice,environmental ethics,industrial civilization and so on.At the theoretical level,this study provides new empirical materials for the visual rhetoric paradigm of image study.At the practical level,Greenpeace’s visual experience provides guidance in promoting environmental activities initiated by China’s ENGO,and also has reference value for China’s international communication on environmental issues.