FOSS'S TECHNIQUES OF IMAGE EVALUATION
Foss provides two techniques of rhetorical visual analysis. One is called "message formulation from images" and the other is called "evaluation of images" (Foss & Kanengieter, 1992). Each is a component of the visual literacy process. The former is the evaluative component and the latter is the reading component. Foss presents them as separate procedures. A 1994 article by Foss elaborated on the "evaluation of images" schema and presented it as a more comprehensive method for analyzing visual images than what was presented in the 1992 article with Kanengieter.
Message formulation from images. Each procedure involves three steps. The threesteps of formulating a message include, 1) identifying presented elements, 2) processing the presented elements, and 3) formulating the message. Identifying the presented elements involves the identification of visual concepts within an image such as lines, textures, colors, lighting, camera angles, and various other identifiable visual concepts.
Next, processing the visual elements involves the identification of suggested elements and organizing those elements. This step describes the way a viewer of an image goes from the presented elements to formulating its message. Suggested elements are the connotative meanings one attaches to those elements that are presented; i.e., the symbolic, social, religious, and various other sorts of meanings associated with visual images. Within any image there might be several symbolic images. The viewer organizes them, looks for interactions among them or tensions between them.
Finally, the viewer formulates the message based on the organization of the suggested elements. In this way the viewer of the visual image may devise an assertion, message, or thesis. An image may have multiple messages depending on the individual viewer's previous encounters with the image, knowledge of the image, or other personal background characteristics that makes each of us understand the world in our own way.
Evaluation of images. The procedure for the evaluation of images focuses on 1) identifying the function of the image, 2) assessing the function, and 3) analyzing the connection between the features of the image and the function of the image. The image's function is determined by the "physical data" within the image (Foss, 1994, p. 216). The data includes such things as the image's subject matter, medium, materials, forms, colors, and other visual components. The function provides the ability to make judgments of image quality. A function should be differentiated from the creator's purpose. Foss (1992) states, "Function, which I have made central to the evaluation of imagery from a rhetorical perspective, is not, then, the function its creator intended but rather the action the image communicates, as named by the critic" (216). This puts the focus on the decoding processes of the receiver. Foss (1994) staunchly advocates the role of the receiver and critic as critical in determining the function and meaning of images. Function then, refers not to the function intended by an advertisement's creator, but rather encompasses the, "action the image communicates as named by the critic" (Foss, 1994, p. 216). Images, then, do not determine their own interpretation, nor is the meaning based on the creator's purpose.