27 Visual Analysis

How a Net can be a Depressing Feature
By Jace Joslyn

The article image from Taipei Times in their article “Foxconn Workers to Get Pay Raises” uses logos and pathos to show the issues with a bad work culture and its impact on mental health. The image accomplishes this through the use of its camera angle to show the depth and size of the nets, this establishes credibility as suicide nets are typically a result to bad mental health and thus suicides, and the highlight of the nets as the bright yellow color of the nets on the greyscale building and background bring attention to the simple yet scary implications that the net represents.

The image shows pathos through its use of angling and scaling, the image shows the size of the nets and the size of the building through its offset perspective. It does this by taking a photo at an angle to the building as well as being low to the ground, this shows the length the nets reach, which puts into perspective the area of coverage that the net is used for. Putting this to scale relative to the size of the building these are attached too puts an emotional strain on the reader as a large part of this building is used for preventing suicide attempts. The reference point this image puts the viewer in seems to be on purpose to put attention on the nets, as if the image was straight on the building or a side profile, the viewer would not be able to see the width of the nets or the length of the nets. The emotion the nets give the viewer are typically of sadness, this is due to the suicide nets being the main reason behind the image, with mental health being a driving force behind suicide nets.

The photo establishes logos and credibility through the connection between suicide and mental health. The image is centered around the suicide nets on the side of the building, this is shown as the nets are in the center of the image and are not traditionally on buildings and these nets are usually put into places to prevent or try to stop people from committing suicides. The mental health strain on the workers in this factory can be shown through the companies’ actions in putting up these suicide nets, this is possibly done as a response to a suicide or maybe even multiple suicides. The image being centered around the nets can also be a deeper implication as the nets themselves seem to stand out more than the rest of the image.

The nets draw a lot of attention in the image, leading to the viewer gaining a sense of dread and thus uses pathos to connect to the viewer. Bringing the viewers’ attention to the nets is done by centering them on the photograph, this results in the viewer taking deeper thought on what they are for and the reason they are there in the first place. They also draw a lot of attention from the viewer through the color of the nets being bright yellow, this is important as the rest of the image and its background, including the building seem to be on a greyscale color tone, resulting in the one bright object in the image being the most depressing one. The suicide nets draw the attention of the viewer through many ways resulting in the deeper thought into the world we live in where a job can be so damaging to a person’s mental strength that preventions have to be put in place to stop people from ending their lives. The strain of emotions and the relation to building nets to the struggle of working in a bad workspace can have a direct connection to the reader through pathos and logos.

The angle of the photograph shows the true scale of how large these nets have to cover to show how far someone is willing to go to leave a mentally tough workplace, as well as how brightly yellow the nets are to draw attention to them, to show that despite how bright something is, the meaning behind them maybe be a lot darker than the grayscale colors around them, drawing. The mental health crisis is becoming a lot more of a problem than most people probably realize, and the implication of suicide nets is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

Works Cited

Reuters, Newly installed nets to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths are pictured yesterday outside one of Foxconn’s factories in Longhua, Guangdong Province, 6/3/2010, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2010/06/03/2003474522, Taipei Times, 9/17/2024