Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis

We are constantly “judging a book by its cover”. We use Rhetoric for everything even when we are not comprehending we are exploiting it. We constantly find ourselves in multiple different situations every day and every day we have thought processes that occur outside of our own consciousness. The example that is given in this article is: media. Americans consume traditional and digital media approximately 15 and half hours per day. Media has become the center of rhetoric and a platform that is recognizable to quick analysis. They use the example of a men’s deodorant commercial. The rhetoric behind the message is that you’ll be irresistible to women if you use our product. By the impression of the message we judge a book by its cover and start to understand the rhetoric behind the message. Decoding the message behind media is rhetorical analysis. Using rhetorical analysis we can get a feel of ethos, logos, and pathos of the media and ask ourselves questions instead of our automatic “judgments”.  “According to rhetorician Kenneth Burke rhetoric is everywhere: wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric and wherever there is meaning there is persuasion”. Context is the beginning of understand rhetoric, it all has to do with the audience. President Obama has to write the appropriate context into his speech about economic policies for the correct audience. When writing his speech he wouldn’t direct it to a class of middle school levels he is going to address the context that a room full of politicians will understand.