Visible Identities, Visual Rhetoric: The Self-Labeled Body as a Popular Platform for Political Persuasion

This study examines how political T-shirts—i.e., those featuring printed images, symbols, or words that make explicit reference to electoral politics—are used by their wearers as identity labels for the purpose of advancing persuasive messages in the public sphere. Drawing upon 28 in-depth interviews with wearers, I consider how making one’s political identity publicly visible with legible markers is conceptualized as a rhetorical act with the...