Tongue in Cheek: Visual Rhetoric and the Opening Sequence of The Colbert Report by Bridget Malaney
With the rise of the digital age and this time of one-hundred-plus TV channels, the ways in which TV shows compete for viewers is constantly evolving and heavily dependent on visual strategies of persuasion. Print and online advertisements, billboards, and TV commercials all attempt to engage audiences in ways that “mobilize symbols to influence diverse publics†(Olsen 9). One particularly interesting area in which visual rhetoric is used to attract and retain viewership is the opening credits of a television show; sometimes these credits have a residual identity—especially in terms of pop-culture—that far surpasses the show itself.