Everyday Rhetoric

Everyday we see examples of rhetoric in advertising, magazines, newspapers, and television commercials that use words and images to persuade us to do something like go see a movie or buy a CD.  You can find rhetoric in almost everything you see in common media today.  People in advertising take advantage of any and every available means to use rhetoric because they know what strategies will work to convince their audience to do something.  Living on a college campus, I know that I see at dozens of examples of visual rhetoric a day through various flyers and advertisements, both in person and through the internet.  And you obviously cannot turn on a television and expect not to see multiple ads on every channel that employ multiple types of rhetoric.  Visual rhetoric seems to be the type that has the strongest impact on the average media consumer.  The American media understands that it's audience typically has a good enough visual literacy to comprehend advertisements and be persuaded by them.  However, we must understand that rhetoric in text also goes a long way in making and communicating statements about society.  We see this type of rhetoric in editorial pieces, comic strips, etc.  If we contain the ability to analyze the use of rhetoric in visuals, texts, or anything else, we can discern the persuasion tactics employed by the media everyday.  We can also use this skill to employ rhetoric in our own writing and speaking.