Samantha Garcia

Lindee Owens
March 17, 2015
Seeing and Perceiving
Many people can be persuaded by the words that are said to them in
every day life. What many dont realize is how powerful visual rhetoric can
be when it comes to them being persuaded. When analyzing the Rolling
Stone article In the Belly of the Beast, written by Paul Solotaroff, it is quite
apparent that the article has a strong way of persuading its audience
through visuals by relating to all three rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and
logos. Solotaroffs article is not written to persuade people who consumes
animal products to go vegan or vegetarian yet is written to inform them on
animal cruelty and the types of unhealthy products that are being produced
at the farms where these issues are occurring. The visuals in this article are
able to persuade his audience in ways that words could not.
The way the document is designed allows the reader to read along
while having multiple forms of visual rhetoric that appeals to the audiences
eyes. From the second you click on the article the author states, A small
band of animal rights activist have been infiltrating the factory farms where
animals are turned into meat under the most horrific circumstances. Now
the agribusiness giants are trying to crush them. Blood starting at the top
of the image drips through those words, leading to an abused cow in a small
crate. This automatically appeals to pathos and ethos. The author refers to

ethos by using the color red in the font, which symbolizes blood. Blood is
also used throughout the rest of the paper where the first letter in some of
the paragraphs starts with a bloody letter. For example, the opening
paragraph starts off with the word Sarah with the S in red with blood
splattered around it. The use of blood triggers an audiences emotions thus
persuading through pathos.
As you continue to go through the article there are four different areas
where the rhetor added quotes splattered in blood. These visuals catch the
audiences attention as they scroll through, even if they decided not to read
the whole article. These visual elements appeal to pathos because it is
human nature for people to get sensitive to the sight of blood. If you were to
read the four different quotes, as well as follow along with all the visuals
throughout the article, you could get a general understanding of what the
author is trying to inform the audience about. Using the color red throughout
the paper creates sensitivity to the subject.
One of the biggest forms of logos that are used to persuade the
audience in this document is the photograph labeled The Dirty Truth About
Cheap Meat. Although many people are quick to avoid the issue at hand,
this specific photograph gives many statistics that appeal to how an
audience can be persuaded to take action, whether it be to become an
activist or to change their eating habits for their own health. Some of the
statistics appearing in this photo were Minimum number of diseases that
can be transferred from farm- animal waste to humans: 40; Miles of river

across 22 U.S. states reporting polluted waterways caused by farm-animal

excrement: 35,000; and Amount of factory-farm animal waste generated in
the U.S. each year: 500 million tons. These statistics are written in small
transparent bubbles with a background picture of a dirty factory farm where
all the animals are processed. The use of visual logos in this photo can help
persuade a reader because it brings quick attention to specific facts that the
audience most likely did not know. All of the facts listed in the photo pertain
to our health and well-being, which is something that interests most readers.
Almost every image in this article persuades the audience through the
use of pathos. As you continue to read the article there is a point where they
give you The Yearly Slaughter by the Numbers. This photo has four
different splatters of blood with the image of a chicken, cow, pig, and turkey
in it. Along with the photo, the rhetor uses logos by providing the audience
with numbers showing how many of each of those animals are killed a year.
The numbers shown in this diagram allow the reader to understand exactly
how many of these animals are being killed daily through various forms of
abuse. This automatically makes an audience feel remorse for the animals
and triggers pathos. When you look at the images in the blood splatter you
can see the pig laying in its own blood along side a chicken with its feathers
and bones looking brittle. Through the use of logos and pathos in these
photographs, the rhetor can persuade its audience to research more about
animal cruelty and what exactly they are feeding their bodies.

As you continue to read the article, the author explains a humans life
through the eyes of a cow. He states, Youre a typical cow in America, and
this is your life. You are raised, like pigs, on a concrete slab in a stall barely
bigger than your body. There, you never touch grass or see sun till the day
youre herded to slaughter. By doing that, he positions his readers to
imagine themselves as a cow leading them to feel sympathetic. Although
the author did a good job of painting the picture in our head through words
he still wanted to put a visual of what is done to the cows. Shortly after there
is a photo of three different types of meat: chicken, pig, and cow. These
photographs have a play button over them that allow the readers to watch a
video on each animal. These gruesome videos show all three animals in
cages or crates that are big enough to fit just their bodies. The videos
continue to show the dirty living conditions these animals live in and proceed
to show us the way each of them are herded and killed. These videos create
a strong sense of pathos. It is easy to read about something but the a lot
harder to physically see it. By watching the videos the author is able to
emotionally trigger his audience into being persuaded.
The document was structured in a way where the reader could see
specific visuals that matched what the rhetor was writing. The images in this
article appeared along the sides of the article where that specific image was
talked about. By structuring the article in that way, the rhetor does not lose
his audiences attention. Towards the end of the article the author starts to
list various things that activists are doing in order to bring awareness and

stop animal cruelty. The last image in this article is an image of multiple
cows in an open field that are not being abused. The rhetor triggers pathos
by allowing readers to finish the article on a more positive note. In doing so,
this specific visual can persuade an audience to take action since it is one of
the few images that triggers positive emotions.
As you can see, the use of visual rhetoric can convey messages that
words cannot express. The rhetor was able to persuade his audience
through ethos, pathos, and logos through the use of visuals in his article.
This essay gave us a better understanding into how and why visual rhetoric
can lead an audience to be persuaded.