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Samuel Andalon
Dr. Serviss
English 16
31 October 2016
Reading Response #4
In her article, Iconographic Tracking: A Digital Research Method for Visual
Rhetoric and Circulation Studies, Laurie E. Gries presents a five-year long study
of Shepard Faireys iconic Obama Hope in which she traces the rhetorical journey
of this image. Through this images journey, it has undergone various
transformations in order to convey different rhetorics depending on its intended
meaning. Since its creation, Obamicons, remixes of the original Obama Hope
image, have taken on the form of addressing societal issues, such as Neda
Agha-Soltan, Anonymous, and the Occupy Movement.
In her research of Obama Hope, she employs a new method of tracing
called iconographic tracking, which as Gries states is a method that makes use
of inventive digital research and traditional qualitative strategies to account for an
images circulation, transformation, and consequentiality (P. 333). During her
research and archiving, Gries came across a variation of Obama Hope images.
In order to categorize these images, Gries used four different titled folders:
Commemoration, Critique, Art, Copyright Debate. Each of these unique folders

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served as a receptacle for a specific rhetorical device that was used in this new
variation of the Obama Hope image. When reading about this method of
classification, I associated it with Bizups BEAM analysis. Similar to BEAM,
each individual document served a unique purpose; the meaning that was
intended by the creator is noted and categorized as such.
Through archiving, Gries was able to categorize and chronicle the different
images journeys. Similarly, Gries incorporates another term relevant to her
research, circulation studies, an interdisciplinary approach to studying discourse
in motion (P. 333). While it is useful to track the different uses of Obamicons, it
is equally as useful to track the meaning making behind these remixes. By
focusing on the rhetoric of each image and observing the bigger picture of
society, we are to grasp a better understanding of why this new version of
Obama Hope was used and look at these archived images from an entirely
different perspective. Both of these ideas in conjunction can be thought of as
tracking the remix process of visual rhetoric.
As a professor in the Department of Communication and the Department
of English, Laurie Gries establishes ethos through a vast knowledge on the
dissemination of rhetoric, especially in regards to multimodality. Gries ethos is
reaffirmed through the publication venue, Computers and Composition: An

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International Journal, which revolves around writing using computers, writing
programs, and empirical evidence and writing research. In assessing the
rhetorical situation of this text, Gries purpose is to promote her new idea of
iconographic tracking across academic disciplines as well as have other
academics be conscious of the impact of circulation studies.
Similarly, in their article, Not Just Words Any More: Multimodal
Communication across the Curriculum, Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, Karen E. Powell,
and Tiffany Walter Choplin aim to enhance the academic communities
understanding of multimodality. When this process started, these three scholars
engaged in discussions of 21st century communication, new media, and the
demands for new communication skills as they elected to establish a
Communication across the Curriculum (CxC) program in 2005 (P. 1). Virtually,
these scholars analyzed modern day media and the possible academic relations
that could be created from these interactions. Ultimately, these discussions were
meant to reexamine the ways in which educators can help students better
develop their writing skills so that they can be at the forefront of this
Communication across the Curriculum frontier. As a result of these discussions,
these authors report[ed] strategies they used to build consensus, collaboration,
and credibility for a multimodal communications curriculum (P. 1). After, they

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determined what the best approach, placing more emphasis on a multimodalitycentered curriculum. In order to successfully outline all this information, the
author summarized and predicted the future advancements that will progress in
order for programs to be defined as cutting edge (P.1). Essentially, these
authors analyzed multimodality in its simplest form and restructured the
conversation regarding multimodality to determine its place in the future of writing
studies.
Similar to Laurie Gries, the rhetorical situation of Not Just Words Any
More: Multimodal Communication across the Curriculum plays a part in how this
text is understood. The ultimate purpose of this article is to establish a curriculum
centered on multimodal communication while also considering its future in
writing studies. This is especially important to those in the writing studies
community, as multimodality is a fairly prevalent topic. As its stands, visual
communication has become a trending topic in the writing community since the
introduction of multimodality. Almost all types of advertising or forms of modernday literacy cannot be solely understood in one type of mode; now, almost all
types modern literacy are incorporating text and pictures, pictures and sound,
sound and text, or some other combination. At this point in writing studies, the
two are inseparable and are unable to be understood without considering the

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other. As Bridwell-Bowles, Powell, and Choplin state, literary study is not just
about the printed book anymore (P. 3). With multimodality in mind, the audience
is other academics in the field of writing studies. Additionally, the publication
venue reinforces the subject, Across the Disciplines: A Journal of Language,
Learning, and Academic Writing.
In addition to crafting students towards a pioneering focus on writing
studies, both of these articles center on the collaboration to a degree. To a larger
extent, Iconographic Tracking incorporates the idea of collaboration through fair
use and remixing. Faireys Obama Hope image was originally intended to support
the 2008 Obama campaign but others have sought to recreate the image in order
to make a specific meaning, an indirect collaboration between Fairey and this
new content creator. To a lesser degree and in a more literal sense, Multimodal
Communication across the Curriculum implements the idea of collaboration in
two ways: the first through collaboration with the writing programs, English
teachers, the Provost Office and other institutional bodies to create a program
that centers on multimodal communication and the second through interweaving
writing through other disciplines and placing more of a focus on writing in
subjects that might not necessarily emphasize writing, like Math or Engineering.
Through working within a university, educators collaborate on a specific

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infrastructure that can make this ideal curriculum possible, manageable, and
creative. On the other side of the spectrum, there is legitimate collaboration
between the original artist (Fairey) and the new content creator. With publishing
his image, Fairey allowed the world to make its own meaning with his image but I
doubt he knew the extent of how popular his image would be or how vast the
images distribution would go.

Works Cited
Bridwell-Bowles, Lillian, Karen E. Powell, and Tiffany Walter Choplin. "Not just
words any more: Multimodal communication across the
curriculum." Across the Disciplines 6 (2009).
Gries, Laurie E. "Iconographic tracking: A digital research method for visual
rhetoric and circulation studies." Computers and Composition 30.4 (2013):
332-348.