Integrating Visual Rhetoric Theory into Digital Media Education: Advancing Students’ Critical Understanding of Persuasive Advertising and Social Media Content

Abstract

The fast expansion of digital advertising and social media has highlighted the importance of visual persuasion in altering audience perceptions, behaviours, and decision-making processes. Within this changing context, digital media education is crucial in providing students with the skills required to critically understand and ethically develop persuasive material. This study looks at how incorporating visual rhetoric theory into digital media education improves students' critical understanding of persuasive messages in advertising and social media settings. The analysis is based on a methodical synthesis of thirty Scopus-indexed journal articles and is organised into three interconnected themes: visual persuasion, critical literacy, and ethical awareness. Visual Persuasion looks at how visual rhetoric theory improves students capacity to assess and generate persuasive communications using imagery, symbolism, multimodality, and narrative framing. According to the findings, structured engagement with rhetorical principles such as visual metaphor, emotional appeal, and compositional strategies significantly improves students' persuasive communication skills as well as their ability to create effective digital advertising content for modern platforms. Critical Literacy emphasises students interpretative and evaluative skills when dealing with digital advertising and social media content. The synthesis demonstrates that visual rhetoric instruction promotes deeper analytical thinking by teaching students to recognise persuasive purpose, recognise manipulation strategies, and critically evaluate algorithmically curated and customised communications. This subject emphasises the importance of visual rhetoric as a teaching tool for improving media literacy and fostering reflective interaction in increasingly saturated digital contexts. Ethical Awareness focusses on the moral and societal dimensions of digital persuasion. The analysed research show that using visual rhetoric theory raises students' knowledge of ethical duties related to transparency, representation, data-driven persuasion, and audience vulnerability. Students become more sensitive to ethical communication practices, particularly those involving misleading visuals, algorithmic bias, and the broader societal impact of persuasive media. Overall, this study contributes to digital media education by illustrating the importance of visual rhetoric theory in fostering persuasive skill, critical literacy, and ethical awareness, with significant implications for curriculum design and pedagogical practice in current digital contexts.