Proposal for Presidential Rhetoric

Several semesters ago, in a literature class far, far away, I remember reading a short essay by Roland Barthes called Photography and Electoral Appeal. Focusing on the effects that subtle photographic elements have on the appearance of political candidates, and how these appearances relay subconscious messages to the voter viewing the photo, Barthes argues that these elements are meant to translate into a specific ideology about the candidate's stance, as well as creating an image that appeals to a national consensus of "normal."

We talked briefly about photographic rhetoric in class the other day and it immediately reminded me of Barthes article. So I decided that for this assignment I would like to focus on exactly that subject, and do a rhetorical analysis of photos from the campaign, using Barthes' work, and concepts from Aristotle in my rhetorical tool belt. And by the nature of the analysis I would assume that most of it would focus on the ethos of the speaker (or in this case, the visual candidate).