Theories within the visual rhetoric field are immense. Most research steers within the scientific realm, and centers on the brain and how it controls peoples’ perceptions of images. For example, in Visual Imagery and Perception, Bertolo focuses on the cognitive processes that control the flow of “form, motion, and colour,” exploring the question of how all of the individual features within images are processed, whether they are binded together or processed separately (174). He later relates these processes to visual imagery and perception. Similar to Bertolo, in Images and the Brain, Kosslyn explores a specific region of the brain, the visual cortex, and how it functions in perceiving representations in imagery, and the degree …show more content…
Perhaps closer to my focus, in Visual Imagery: Applications to Advertising, Rossiter specifically outlines effective forms of visual content in advertising, revealing further patterns that grab and hold peoples’ attention enough to purchase items or inherit ideas as their own. These articles and chapters covering visual theory and effective patterns within visual rhetoric provide starting grounds for helping us understand how to catch the attention of Millennials and persuade them to support a non-profit, but much more research must be conducted in order to fully understand this realm of visual …show more content…
Methodology
A. Subject Selection Focusing on people who grew up during the rise in technology, (invention of the internet, etc.) I will focus my research on individuals born between 1980 and 2000. In order to receive conclusive results, my case study will involve 40 subjects. My subjects will include 10 women and men, each, born within 1980 and 1989 who visit organizational websites at least monthly, and check in to several social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, at least 2 times a week, and 10 women and men, each, born within 1990 and 2000 with the same internet habits.
B. Data Collection Think aloud testing will serve as the primary protocol of information processing for this study. Subjects will be shown various images from different successful and less successful non-profit organizations that display differing features, such as color, texture, font, theme, and point of view differences on a laptop screen. I will record their initial response to these images, as they verbalize what catches their attention and why. Follow up surveys and potential interviews will also be administered to provide a greater data base for analysis and gain further insight into whether these features are powerful enough to persuade the subjects to give their financial