PEACE CORPS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

91solidifying what we understand to be the “other” and what we understand to be the role ofthe Peace Corps volunteer. Finally, the photographs reveal an on-going narrative ofvolunteer service and of how that service affects other nations.Visual Rhetorics are Constructed Under the Pressure of SocietyThe photographs reveal to us a set of cultural assumptions that we make aboutourselves and about the people of developing nations. There are two major justificationsto this claim. First, because these photographs are taken by volunteers and otherAmerican staff members, they were created with a particular set of cultural codes inmind. Secondly, the way we see ourselves and others is a result of the way we choose toframe the world around us.Because the photographs are taken most often by volunteers and/or staffmembers, they have been taken under the influence of society, a society where thephotographer has been conditioned to think of the West in certain terms and the non-Westin certain terms. Then, the organization chooses from thousands of possible images,which images display the mission of the organization most clearly. This choice isactually rather limited because the options are all constructed under the pressure ofWestern society to begin with, leaving little variety in the final decision.Each photograph is selected by the organization to reflect an image of theorganization to Americans. This is a decision, however subconscious, on the part of theorganization to create an attractive image of volunteer service. If we see ourselves asmodern, advanced, peoples who provide educated, helpful volunteers to other countries,then we automatically presume that those “other” countries are living pre-modern,