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Animal Controversy

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Issues concerning animal rights are often controversial. Various attempts at making human life more convenient interfere with the lives of animals, endangering them. Overtime these practices, such as deforestation, lab testing on animals, and poaching, can increase the risk of the animals involved becoming extinct. Several different organizations attempt to combat the risk posed to endangered animals by creating ad campaigns to raise awareness of the harsh effects losing such animals could cause. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, made the image above with the hope that people might either change their harmful ways or contribute to groups that attempt to save animals. By identifying the ways in which this image can be considered an argument …show more content…

One of the ways is images being visual flags. The image of the fake tiger in the wild grabs the viewer’s attention because it has a cartoon-like look. It is evident that the tiger does not fit in with the natural background and this “flags” people’s attention to the issue presented. In addition, the balance of the image draws attention to the tiger. The tiger is on the left side rather than just the middle making for a slighty unbalanced feeling that makes people look at what is being presented. The depth of field in the image, with the tiger bigger and in the front while the vehicle and tree seem to be far off in the distance also draws attention to the tiger at first. This furthers the argument because it causes the viewer to see and begin to interpret the fake tiger before just glancing the image over as if it is just another landscape …show more content…

Fleming insists that arguments must be two sided; they must look at both the pros and cons of a situation, an idea known as dissoi logoi. Based on this, he claims that images can only show one side of an issue, and people cannot easily see the other side by simply viewing an image. Birdsell and Groarke counter Fleming by saying that people must interpret images within their context just as words are interpreted in context. For the World Wildlife Fund image, the context includes the background with the wild grassland and the people in the vehicle observing. If one takes into account this context, it is easy to think about the normative idea of a grassland with a large herd of animals that look and are authentic. When viewing this image with the alternative view in mind, it is easy to see both sides of the issue. With the caption, “The Future is Man Made” also in mind, it is evident that this image is arguing that people should take a stand and attempt to change the course of events that could actually cause the future to look this way. This image is all that is needed to get that idea across and when looking at it with the dominant read, it is evident that there is nothing about the image that is too ambiguous, as Fleming would like to believe images to

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