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Brad Anderson Dr. Kristie Fleckenstein ENG 5028 30 November 2015 Virtual Flag­Bearing: Visual Ideograph in Digital Media On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage would be Constitutionally recognized and protected in all fifty states (​
Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al.​
). Public reaction to this decision was swift and varied, with a predictable outpour of mostly positive celebration and some negative criticism. Regardless, the decision was a watershed moment for American social equality, and individuals and corporate entities alike demonstrated support. The social media platform Facebook endorsed the ruling by offering a tool allowing users to overlay the symbol of the LGBTQ pride flag, a rainbow pattern, onto their profile pictures. By June 29, an estimated 26 million Facebook users had utilized this digital tool and, in the process, made a collective statement (Dewey). The rhetorical act of "rainbow­izing" one's social media image instantly wields the iconography of the LGBTQ pride flag to facilitate discourse while simultaneously expressing one's own political position; in this case one's support of marriage equality. Building upon the work of Michael C. McGee’s ideograph, and Janis L. Edwards and Carol K. Winkler’s visual ideograph, this paper examines visual ideograph's new cultural significance in the digital age through the lens of this prominent social media movement. I assert that visual ideograph fulfills two roles within the digital space: functioning in its traditional role as a symbol charged with cultural meaning, and then building upon that capability to function as a rhetorical expression of digital identity via identification with the contextualized ideology or belief. (Visual) Ideograph In defining the ideograph, Michael C. McGee argues that “political consciousness can be constructed from the structures of meaning exhibited by a society's vocabulary of ‘ideographs’” (‘Ideograph’ 1). The ideograph is often abstract terminology that functions as a signifier preloaded with cultural ideals; a “symbolist thought” comprising complex meanings and often provoking impassioned emotional responses. Ideographs like “freedom” and “equality” dominate discourse within the western sociopolitical sphere; the nebulous nature of these ideographs both influence and are influenced by the means and ends of their deployment. “Freedom” in the context of American slavery holds a very different set of specific beliefs and policies than “freedom” of religion in modern political discourse, yet both retain their culturally idealistic and abstracted importance in their respective contexts. With the ideograph playing such a significant role in political discourse, the seismic shift in the media landscape triggered a corresponding shift in the nature of the ideograph. Proliferation of digital multimedia has introduced a climate conducive to substantive ideological symbolism; the thriving link between language­signifier and image­signifier has produced imagistic ideographs. In examining the cultural significance of Iwo Jima imagery, Janis L. Edwards and Carol K. Winkler conclude that when symbols function as ideographs, “such forms provide instructive perspectives on varied, multiple situations by summing up the culturally­defined essences of human motivations” (303). Both due to and in spite of ideographic abstractness, the visual ideograph is a symbolic representation of ideology in a multimodal environment. Within predominant forms of visual ideograph, flags constitute one of the the earliest and purest forms; they traditionally functioned as battle standards, and later as symbolic representations of governments or family crests. Examining First Amendment protections of American flag desecration, Sheldon H. Nahmod describes the ideographic underpinnings of the nation’s flag: In semiotic terms, the American flag is a signifier and the various aesthetic, intellectual and emotional meanings that may be attached to it are signifieds… Many Americans feel strongly about the flag, seeing within its borders a patriotic symbol of both the nationhood and the ideals of the United States. (512) Flags clearly elicit powerful meaning and responses to the entities they represent, and “professional persuaders” have become more adept at exploiting these links across an increasing number of contexts (“Psychology of Rhetorical Images” 35). The ubiquitous usage and importance of flags has evolved to encompass cultural values. Contemporary American political discourse features a variety of cultural “awareness” flags, including environmentalist, atheist, feminist, and LGBTQ social movements, and all of which are purchasable from any number of specialty flag retailers. It is perhaps representative of this “symbolized culture” that the Confederate flag was the subject of its own controversy at the precise moment of the Supreme Court’s decision. Indeed, McGee’s vocabulary of ideographs has evolved with media representation to include a stock of imagery representing political and/or social expression. One of McGee’s criteria for an ideograph is a high level of abstraction, reflecting “collective commitment to a particular but equivocal and ill­defined normative goal” (15). This abstraction extends to the visual symbol, as noted by Nahmod’s analysis: “What is signified by the American flag has no natural or necessary relationship to that signifier; rather, what is signified by the American flag is solely a function of socially created conventions” (512). To this end, the LGBTQ flag co­opts and converts the rainbow, as a ubiquitous natural phenomenon with a generally positive connotation, into a representation of equality for a marginalized group. While marriage equality is in itself a well­defined goal, the flag was borne of an environment that saw no semblance of equality. The ideograph also, according to McGee, “warrants the use of power, excuses behavior and belief which might otherwise be perceived as eccentric or antisocial, and guides behavior and belief into channels easily recognized by a community as acceptable and laudable” (15). This encapsulates the flag’s image (a cultural icon of equality) as a function of its symbolicity (the normalization LGBTQ “otherness” and equality therein). “Even now, the term “equality” elicits vastly different responses from different individuals—and the rainbow flag continues to function as an icon of “collective commitment.” Visual Ideograph in Digital Media Within the digital space, social media serves as a primary site for cultural and sociopolitical discourse. Kietzmann, et al. find that “​
people tweet, blog, et cetera to meet new like­minded people, to find true love, to build their self­esteem, or to be on the cutting edge of new ideas or trending topics. Yet others see social media as a way of making their message heard and positively impacting humanitarian causes, environmental problems, economic issues, or political debates” (246). ​
Two characteristics unique to social media have inherently altered the form and content of social media discourse: increased access and multimodality. Within the ubiquity of the digital space, social media platforms (ideally) constitute truly open exchanges of opinions, perspectives, and (mis)information. Richard Holt asserts that “​
the ability of the Internet to unite those of disparate backgrounds has great potential for fostering debate and discussion of issues in the civic arena. In many cases, differences of opinion about, for example, political issues arise from lack of familiarity with the perspectives of other people” (14). The social media arena provides the most democratically accessible forum yet in which disparate or historically marginalized voices may contribute to and even shape discourse. Social media also affords users the opportunity to augment or initiate discourse through various media; images, video, and text converge to cultivate more empirical, comprehensive discourse. Facebook users are able to post links to “memes” or videos that support or echo their own political opinions—thereby establishing a point of view without the potential misunderstandings or barriers of a linguistic argument. This media’s conspicuous, cogent presence, as termed by Perelman and Olbrechts­Tyteca, sets its own context and conducts its own argumentation: “By the very fact of selecting certain elements and presenting them to the audience, their importance and pertinency to the discussion are implied” (​
Realm of Rhetoric 116). It is within this image­dominated arena of digital media that the readily­deployable visual ideograph has emerged as a crucial cultural signifier and rhetorical tool. Pulling Double Duty: Expression of Solidarity and Identity Behind the veil of relative online anonymity, social media users have the tools to craft a digital identity—in Facebook’s case, the “profile”—that may bear a strong resemblance to or be entirely different from that of the tangible world. A critical component of the construction of a social media user’s identity is the images with which the user is implicitly or explicitly associated. Along with flattering selfies, digital photos of children, vacations, and other life events are not uncommon within social media profiles. As we engage in social media communities, “we mobilize (and desire) a particular type of self, as well as a particular set of social relations: light­hearted and creative, enjoyable and full of possibilities. That is, how we communicate (through text, sounds, and images), conveys important information about who we are, how we want to be seen, and how we perceive the world” (Deumert 27). This “digital scrapbook” constructs and delivers an individual identity shaped by the nature of the images that users select. While displaying the rainbow flag on social media in support of gay marriage is an indisputably rhetorical act, the specific mechanic of transferring the pattern over one’s own image is significant; these Facebook users expressed solidarity with the marriage equality position without sacrificing their visual likenesses. This process symbolically blends the profile image and the visual ideograph into a powerful, personalized political and ideological statement. Social media’s unique emphasis of digital individuality creates an interesting dynamic; in the midst of an obviously widespread collective rhetorical act, users not only retained their identities, but augmented them by adding inherent support of a political movement. The construction of the digital persona is a complicated assemblage; Estee N. Beck describes the digital identity as “​
made up of various virtual, non­virtual, human, and non­human cultural ecologies that exist in a matrix of various temporal, spatial, physical, emotional, political, social, financial, and legal dimensions” (“Invisible Digital Identity” 33).​
In the case of the rainbow image, an important ideological “feature” is added to complement an increasingly complex, multi­faceted digital identity. Yet the collective argument is not lost, but arguably enhanced. J. Anthony Blair suggests that “the advantage of visual arguments over print or spoken arguments lies in their evocative power. Part of this power is due to the enormously high number of images that can be conveyed in a short time” (Defining Visual Rhetorics 51). In this case, this evocative power enjoys breadth as well as depth; in an age where viral mass media and public perception define political issues, a significant cross­section of Facebook users harnessing the same visual ideograph for a rhetorical purpose is a paradigm of modern visual argument. McGee’s ideograph was founded in response to his observation that “ideology in practice is a political language… the political language which manifests ideology seems characterized by slogans, a vocabulary of ideographs easily mistaken for the technical terminology of political philosophy” (6). Facebook itself sets the rhetorical tone for these images; the specific page housing the tool is titled, “Let’s Celebrate Pride.” This positive, inclusive language packages both visual and linguistic ideographs into a promotion of socially shared support for and celebration of progressive legislation. Conclusion In addition to the rhetorical machinations in play, analysis of this event reveals a litany of psychological, sociological, and political ramifications. It has already functioned as a precursor in at least one instance; at the moment of this writing, horrific terrorist attacks on Paris have prompted a similar social media profile image movement featuring the French flag—and a similar invocation of ideograph, in this case “terrorism.” Both events raise similar rhetorical questions: Will image continue to supplant language as argument? If so, what could future argumentation look like, especially in the digital realm? Most fascinating, however, is how sociopolitical movements or groups can build upon this event to increase their own exposure and further their own goals. As media continues to proliferate, and the digital persona increases in importance, so too will the means by which individuals choose to embrace or represent ideological entities as fragments of their digitally assembled identities. Where might this symbiotic relationship lead in the future? Works Cited Beck, Estee N. “The Invisible Digital Identity: Assemblages in Digital Networks.” ​
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