Political Poster
Political posters are usually overlooked by the American public. The reason is political posters or handouts are dull and uninteresting to the public. However, in the 2008 presidential election in the United States of America, a poster of the democratic candidate was seen practically everywhere. That democratic candidate, then, is now the president of the United
States, Barack Obama. The iconic image was created by a street artist by the name of Shepard
Fairey.1 How does a street artist’s work become the image of a high profile campaign? Also, why did this particular piece of work become a pop culture phenomenon in America. In this paper, we will go through to find out why and how did this image strike the American and the world’s attention. In this paper, we will focus the attention on the annotations of this famous poster. First, …show more content…
15 Dec. 2013
<http://people.cohums.ohiostate.edu/mccorkle12/work2.html>
2
rumors of having relations with socialist parties. However, McCorkle, was not the only one who believed this poster had an influence from the communist propaganda posters. Marita Sturken believe the aesthetics of the political poster had “an historical relationship with Marxist culture.”
However, Sturken also stated the poster is ironic. The reason is, even if the poster had an overall aesthetic of communism, the bottom of the portrait had the word “HOPE.” 5 Sturken believe that the irony of the poster gave an appeal to the presidential portrait, which Sturken stated may be the “new patriotic aesthetics.” In the terms of the word “hope,” it was stated by Christopher Finn and Jack Glaser that the word “hope” gave an emotional appeal to the poster.6 With the word
“hope” and the patriotic color of red, white, and blue, it gave the voting public the emotions of the presidential candidate.
Since many writers and analyst had their opinions on the political poster, I would like to put my input as well with a rhetorical analysis. Before I start, I would like to explain what …show more content…
It was on tshirts, walls, and even bathroom stalls. It became a
“cool” image. I wanted to know how did a street art become the image of a high profile campaign. To achieve that answer I chose to do a rhetorical analysis because it recognize the image, the author, and most importantly the audience. Through this process I found that the campaign portrait created the image of the campaign itself.
Work Cited
Arnon, Ben. "How the Obama ‘Hope’Poster Reached a Tipping Point and Became a Cultural
Phenomenon: An Interview with the Artist Shepard Fairey."
The Huffington Post 13.10
(2008).
Fairey, Shepard. "OBEY GIANT WORLDWIDE PROPAGANDA DELIVERY." 13 Dec.
2013 <http://www.obeygiant.com/>
Finn, Christopher, and Jack Glaser. "Voter affect and the 2008 US presidential election: Hope and race mattered."
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 10.1 (2010): 262275.
Leach, Joan. "Rhetorical analysis."
Qualitative researching with text, image and sound
(2000): 207226.
Lester, Paul Martin.
Visual communication: Images with messages
. Cengage Learning, 2012.
McCorkle, Ben. "Annotated Obama Poster People." 2012. 15 Dec. 2013
States, Barack Obama. The iconic image was created by a street artist by the name of Shepard
Fairey.1 How does a street artist’s work become the image of a high profile campaign? Also, why did this particular piece of work become a pop culture phenomenon in America. In this paper, we will go through to find out why and how did this image strike the American and the world’s attention. In this paper, we will focus the attention on the annotations of this famous poster. First, …show more content…
15 Dec. 2013
<http://people.cohums.ohiostate.edu/mccorkle12/work2.html>
2
rumors of having relations with socialist parties. However, McCorkle, was not the only one who believed this poster had an influence from the communist propaganda posters. Marita Sturken believe the aesthetics of the political poster had “an historical relationship with Marxist culture.”
However, Sturken also stated the poster is ironic. The reason is, even if the poster had an overall aesthetic of communism, the bottom of the portrait had the word “HOPE.” 5 Sturken believe that the irony of the poster gave an appeal to the presidential portrait, which Sturken stated may be the “new patriotic aesthetics.” In the terms of the word “hope,” it was stated by Christopher Finn and Jack Glaser that the word “hope” gave an emotional appeal to the poster.6 With the word
“hope” and the patriotic color of red, white, and blue, it gave the voting public the emotions of the presidential candidate.
Since many writers and analyst had their opinions on the political poster, I would like to put my input as well with a rhetorical analysis. Before I start, I would like to explain what …show more content…
It was on tshirts, walls, and even bathroom stalls. It became a
“cool” image. I wanted to know how did a street art become the image of a high profile campaign. To achieve that answer I chose to do a rhetorical analysis because it recognize the image, the author, and most importantly the audience. Through this process I found that the campaign portrait created the image of the campaign itself.
Work Cited
Arnon, Ben. "How the Obama ‘Hope’Poster Reached a Tipping Point and Became a Cultural
Phenomenon: An Interview with the Artist Shepard Fairey."
The Huffington Post 13.10
(2008).
Fairey, Shepard. "OBEY GIANT WORLDWIDE PROPAGANDA DELIVERY." 13 Dec.
2013 <http://www.obeygiant.com/>
Finn, Christopher, and Jack Glaser. "Voter affect and the 2008 US presidential election: Hope and race mattered."
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 10.1 (2010): 262275.
Leach, Joan. "Rhetorical analysis."
Qualitative researching with text, image and sound
(2000): 207226.
Lester, Paul Martin.
Visual communication: Images with messages
. Cengage Learning, 2012.
McCorkle, Ben. "Annotated Obama Poster People." 2012. 15 Dec. 2013