Ithaca College

Professor Steve Seidman was guest editor of a special issue of the Journal of Visual Literacy on the visual dimensions of political communications, published in July 2010. The five articles included in the Spring issue of the journal were written by scholars in three countries—the United States, Sweden, and Austria—with two of the articles by professors in the Roy H. Park School of Communications: Seidman and Assistant Professors Cory Young and Arhlene Flowers.

Seidman's article was titled, “Barack Obama’s 2008 Campaign for the U.S. Presidency and Visual Design,” focuses on how visual design was used to build and support the candidate’s brand and enhance his image. The use of visual imagery in Obama’s campaign is compared to the exploitation of visuals in other U.S. presidential campaigns, so there is an investigation across history, as well as across media.

The article by Young and Flowers, “Parodying Palin: How Tina Fey’s Visual and Verbal Impersonations Revived a Comedy Show and Impacted the 2008 Election,” analyzes the political parodying of U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the television show Saturday Night Live. The study provides a detailed analysis of the visuals, including body gestures, used to satirize Palin in two skits, as well as to point out the importance of such political symbols as the flag. Interesting, as well, is the analysis of verbal parodying techniques. 

The other articles looked at stickers employed by extremist groups in Sweden, Pepsi's use of visual and verbal strategies taken from the Obama campaign, and visual and verbal aspects of news coverage of the 2009 Gaza crisis.

To read the above articles, visit: http://www.ohio.edu/visualliteracy/