Visual Communication Uses and Gratifications and Rhetorical Analysis: Sports Photography of the Athletes on Sports Illustrated Magazine Name: Jamaal Brown Professor: Jonathan Schroeder Course Number: 0535-450-01 Due Date: May 17, 2012 Uses and Gratifications and Rhetorical Analysis: Sports Photography of the Athletes on Sports Illustrated Magazine Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine how Walter Iooss’ photographic works influence the audience’s perception of athletes and the audience’s sense to connect with Sports Illustrated magazine. The Sports Illustrated magazine itself has the power of persuasion on audience’s perception of athletes as well. Walter Iooss’ Quotation and Inspirational as a Photographer According to Introduction to Visual Communication, there are professional photographers who make a living taking pictures. Amateur photographers love to take picture but they do not necessarily turn into a career. Hobbyists are do-it-yourself photographers who think photography is a fun activity (Barnes, 2011). Walter Iooss has been one of the photographers who think photography is a fun activity, especially travelling to the sports world. "I've always felt the moment. People call me lucky, and luck is a wonderful attribute. But it's more - it's a sense somehow. It's inexplicable, it happens. It's a feeling and you just move into that direction. Someone once said that wherever I am is the perfect picture. I didn't like the way it sounded but I believe that. It's not that I'm positive of it deep down inside, it's that I have to believe it. When you make that decision - 'This is the place to go' - you've got to live with it. There's no alternative." - Walter Iooss "The real joy of photography is these moments. I’m always looking for freedom, the search for the one-on-one. That’s when your instincts come out. I’ve been lucky enough to have people hire me to do that. Sports Illustrated never really restricts me. They want me to do what I do. It’s the discovery. It’s still magic." – Walter Iooss Introduction Biographical Essay Today, the audience acknowledges about the Sports Illustrated magazine but they do not know what Walter Iooss is famous for. To begin with Walter Iooss, he has had a reputation as one of the most important and famous sports photographers of all times. Before he turned out to be a famous sport photographer, he began his career as a photographer when he was the age of sixteen in professional baseball game at the Yankees Stadium. Iooss’ father gave him a camera to begin photographing athletes as a hobby. As soon as he impressed someone with his photographic works, he was immediately hired by Sports Illustrated magazine to do his first photographic assignment in various professional sports games. Iooss had a great opportunity to shoot the several photographs of the many greatest athletes that have ever lived, including Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Derek Jeter, and to name a few. These days, Iooss has already produced over 300 photographs of the athletes on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Magazine for more than 30 years. Thesis Statement Walter Iooss’ sports photographic works have the power and ability to influence to audience’s perception of the athletes based on the communication theories such as uses-and- gratifications theory and rhetorical theory. Uses and Gratifications Uses and Gratification is a theory which places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual messages itself by asking, “What people do with the media” rather than “what media does to people” (Katz, 1959). According to uses and gratification theory, the media audience seeks the media to satisfy their needs (O’Donohoe, 1993). Rubin (1983) also suggested that among use motives were securing information, seeking entertainment and companionship. There are many audience who are the hardcore sports fans have the different types of reaction when it comes to visualizing athletes on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine. Two audiences that literature suggests may have differing psychological needs are men and women (Santos, Kotowski, and Harwood, 2007). The audience has four basic needs, which include diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, and surveillance. Diversion This photograph is known as Blue Dunking which was produced by Walter Iooss. To begin with diversion, the audience (the sports readers) has the need to read the Sports Illustration magazine in order to escape from daily life. The Sports Illustrated magazine provides the audience the opportunity to reduce stress by reading a sports magazine they enjoy the most. The audience is able to seek and discover the exciting photographs of athletes that Iooss shoots on the cover of Sports Illustrated Magazine. Entertainment is not the only thing to reduce readers’ stress but it assists the readers to develop more energy as well as motivation. Michael Jordan, known as Air Jordan and one of the greatest NBA players ever, the readers know who Michael Jordan is and what he is famous for. No one captured Michael Jordan’s personality, his joy for the game, or his most personal moments, the way Walter Iooss has (Moves Magazine, 2009). Walter Iooss had the world of opportunity to explain what, where and why the photograph of Michael Jordan was one of his favorite and the most important photographs in history. Michael Jordan explained when he met Iooss at the first time, “I was 24 years old and tired of photographers when I met Walter for the first time, or to put the date of the meeting into context the way Walter does. I still had hair. It was another dunk session, this one in suburban in Chicago” (Iooss, 2008). In 1987, Michael Jordan was photographed by Walter Iooss during the NBA All-Stars Slam Dunk Contest in Seattle, Washington. On the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, Walter produced the photograph of Jordan dunking the ball in the middle of blue-painted floor along with the shadow. The blue-painted floor is the color that may not be exactly the color of the sky but the blue is the representation and symbolization of cool, sky and heaven. Air Jordan has the powerful young legs that could fly in the sky. It is as though Air Jordan has not arrived on the ground yet. The darker shadow of Michael Jordan’s gorgeous form of dunking is interpreted as the movement on the ground. For instance, once the visual audience notices the shadow movement on the ground, it reflects the metaphor, as an airplane is moving and flying on the blue sky. This photograph assisted the readers to understand why Michael Jordan could fly and why he was called Air Jordan. Personal Relationship For the personal relationship, the audience utilizes the sports illustrated magazine for the need of companionship. There is a simple reason why people need companionship. It is a mental connection. Reading Sports Illustrated magazine provides the audience the opportunity to update the news or information with friends. The audience can be more than curious to discover what could happen next and also tends to share the information with friends about what they think would happen next. The Sports Illustrated magazine assists the audience to identify with friends as well as developing a sense of belonging. Readers’ process of selection when they choose a magazine ensures the relevance of the contents to the individual reader, and an empathy with how the magazine sees the world (Consterdine, 2009). A companion American study from Time Inc called ‘The Magazine Experience Study similarly concluded that magazines meet a range of emotional and rational needs. The Sports Illustrated magazines contribute to the readers the intention to create and share the gossip with friends about athletes. For instance, the audience might share and express opinion with friends about what is next. For another instance, when professional sports leagues, such as National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), or National Hockey League (NHL), generally announced about the trade, friends would be able to deliver the conversation whether they consider that the trade is optimistic or negative. Therefore, the information news can be found on the Sports Illustrated. Iooss utilizes photographs to help the readers to grow trust with the Sports Illustrated magazine. Reading the updated news about the trade can lead the readers to companionship. The sports photography magazine is not just sharing your information with friends, yet reading Sports Illustrated magazine can influence the audience to develop relationships with the magazine. Reading Sports Illustrated magazine is symbolized as chatting with your friends about sports in general. For example, the author wrote the story about professional athletes to the readers, therefore the readers listen the author’s story. Iooss shoots the photographs professional athletes to draw the audience to build relationship with the Sports Illustrated magazine. Personal Identity For the personal identity, the audience occasionally has the need to get involved with the media in order to find out about themselves. Walter Iooss has several photographic works to influence the audience’s identity. Occasionally, sports photography assists the audience to understand who they are. Rebecca Symes, now a Chartered Psychologist and registered as a practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professionals Council, pointed out that there are two faces of identity, private identity and public identity (Symes, 2010). Private identity is concerned with how we see ourselves and is usually described as being unavailable for public scrutiny—it includes our attitude, beliefs, feelings and emotions, and public identity on the other hand is concerned with how we think others see us, or indeed may judge us. For the sports photography, it is most likely to choose public identity for the audience’s available to see the photography of professional athletes on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine.