Visual Argument

In the Nissan Leaf commercial, they had a very clear ideology.  They wanted to win the audience over by showing how polar bears are suffering due to environmental shifts.  They are insinuating that by driving this car, you will be part of a movement that is trying to stop the deterioration of the polar icecaps.  They are able to make this connection by saying that in driving a car that does not need gas, your car will not release as much pollutants into the air as would a normal car.  The commercial particularly plays on viewers’ emotions because they show a series of images in which the polar bears look stranded as they lose their homes, which tugs on your heart and makes you feel bad for the bears; it makes you want to drive this car to help the bears.  I think that this commercial is intended to target anyone who has a soft spot for animals, which is a large part of the nation.  The viewers would definitely be reading into this commercial in a dominant-hegemonic way because the commercial shows a clear problem and clear solution to that problem.  Viewers would absorb the images of the abandoned polar bears and have the desire to help them.  At the same time, driving this car will not directly improve the lives of polar bears like the commercial suggests; driving this car would be part of a movement, a bigger change that could eventually help the environment with everyone’s combined efforts.  Therefore, I can understand how a viewer might read into this commercial with opposition because they might see through Nissan’s pretenses and realize that buying this car and saving the lives of polar bears are not really direct correlations.