Smoking Advertisement

Back in the day, when the fact that smoking cigarettes could cause health complications was not such a big issue, big tobacco companies were advertising their product everywhere from movies to magazines. Some vintage cigarette advertisements even portrayed doctors talking about the benefits from smoking or the appealing aspects of certain brands. In the advertisement above, the tobacco companies are trying to portray their cigarettes as having an appealing taste or smell. The advertisement not only provides the different flavors of their brand but also shows a man blowing smoke into the face of a beautiful woman who has become somewhat attracted to him for doing so. This was a time when tobacco companies would go to extreme lengths to make cigarettes more appealing.

Mini Cooper Advertisement

Rhetoric is imposed into many of the advertisements we see every day. Advertising companies use these images of visual rhetoric to appeal to the consumers’ needs so that they may sell more of whatever they are trying to sell. This particular advertisement displays a Mini Cooper positioned in front of an escalator so that it looks like all the people going down the escalator are getting into the car. This sort of allusion symbolizes that the Mini Cooper, though a very compact car, has a large amount of space for passengers. This image was portrayed in a way to appeal to consumers who wish to own a small, fuel efficient car but also a car with a fairly large amount of passenger space.

Tiananmen Square Massacre

On June 4, 1989, hundreds of Chinese civilians were shot dead by the Chinese army during a military operation to crush a democratic protest in Peking’s Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Demonstrators, mainly comprised of students, had occupied the square for several weeks demanding democratic reform. The government described the peaceful protest as social chaos and warned that it would do whatever it saw fit to put an end to the demonstration. Tanks rumbled through the streets and the army moved into the square from several directions. The troops began shooting unarmed protesters at random. Though many expected violence, the ferocity of the government’s attack took the world by surprise. The image above is an iconic image and is an important example of visual rhetoric. In the photograph, a student steps in front of a procession of tanks protesting the use of military force in order to silence the public's demand for diplomatic reform. Today, this image is used around the world to display communism in the worst way leaving anyone who sees the image with negative feelings towards this system of government.