Visual Rhetoric

It is interesting to me how much advertising is subconsciously noticed during my day to day routine.  After taking an hour to open my eyes and realize how many ad campaigns are thrown into the faces of the public, I have come to understand that the human mind blatantly ignores the immense amount.  The marketing industry produces and distributes an insane amount of messages.  Some advertisements have bold, blatant messages while others are much more subtle and interpretive.

The hour I took notice of the visual rhetoric around me I spent my time eating lunch in my dorm room, watching TV and surfing the internet.  Obviously, the television channel played more commercials than it did actual programs.  But this is something that I have come to expect.  The commercials ranged from product promotion to supporting a message to displaying hints of what viewers should tune into.  These commercials are annoying to me, personally, because the interrupt whatever I am trying to view.  Also, it was not challenging for me to conclude how easily TV commercials are disregarded.  They require little thought to understand, normally, and are not generally remembered after a short period of time.  I believe this is why they are replayed so often.

The TV commercials are not what got me wondering about visual rhetoric, though.  It was in fact all the advertisements pushed onto the defenseless public checking their email or updating their status on Facebook.  The internet is FULL of visual rhetoric intended to not only grasp the attention of the viewer, but also lead him or her to wherever the ad's link might arrive.  As I stated previously, these are a little more difficult to shrug off.

It concerns me that just sitting in my dorm room for an hour can not hide me from the attempted persuasion of today's advertising industry.  Visual rhetoric has become virtually unavoidable.  It is one of the most substantial ways to attract a viewer and reel him or her into analyzing the message being portrayed.  Whether realizing it or not, the public is influenced by visual rhetoric on a daily basis.