ABSTRACT
This paper is about how images work rhetorically to reinforce dominant ways of seeing and, under some circumstances, to challenge them. I argue that certain iconic images resonate with and reinforce established ways of seeing. Such ways of seeing, in turn, direct interpretations of such images into established grooves of meaning. While counterpublics steeped in oppositional discourse may have the resources with which to resist or reframe such images in new terms, for a mass U.S. public, iconic images generally are doxastic, that is, capable of establishing, reinforcing, and deploying naturalized common sense about the world in the service of power.
