Living Rhetorically in the Real World

In the Media: The rhetoric of Mad Men

One of my current favourite television shows is Mad Men. From my point of view, as a rhetorician, what's not to like about the show? It's based around the concept of advertising, communication, and power struggle within relationships. I find the rhetoric of Mad Men to be fascinating.

Image borrowed from Google.

Something about the show that I really get a kick out of is when the characters who aren't in the advertising business brush off the ad men as not actually doing anything - as though the advertising business isn't really that big of a deal.

The thing is that advertising is a big deal. It's a really big deal, and we see this both in our society and in the rhetoric of Mad Men. Because it doesn't matter so much what we say as how we say it when trying to influence consumers and sell an idea or a project, as Marshall McLuhan's oft-repeated the medium is the message theory illustrates.

When analyzing the rhetoric of Mad Men, we get the chance to examine the thought process going on behind the scenes in the advertising business. Even when we are aware of how advertisements work, we are still influenced into purchasing certain items and even into thinking in specific ways. That's how good advertising is. It can get right into the depths of the mind so that we might be able to know what's going on, but still be affected by it. It's funny to see that portrayed in a television show and to be able to watch it happening in all of the layers within and surrounding the rhetoric of Mad Men - you can pull it apart as much as you like to analyze all of that rhetoric!