Why did Stein decide to write about this commercial?
Why did Stein go so in depth when describing the commercial?
In the 1984 superbowl Macintosh computers ran an ad at halftime. The ad was made to put down IBM computers and promote Mac computers. IBM was viewed as big brother in George Orwell's 1984. There is a woman who runs through a building and smashes an IBM computer symbolizing the downfall of IBM and rise of Mac. The rest of Stein's article dicusses the layers of symbolism that are in the commercial.
I feel that Stein wrote this article to show how persuasive advertisement can be. The ad used constitutive rhetoric which does not give the reader an option over what they feel or believe but instead told them what they believed. After reading her article I realized that large corporations use advertisement in order to manipulate the way that consumers think and push them to purchase their products. I think Stein wanted people to know this so that they would not fall prey to large corporation advertisement. I feel this way because Stein stressed the use of constitutive rhetoric in the commercial which made viewers feel that they should desert IBM and resort to the new Macintosh products instead. While doing this Mac stepped right into IBM's shoes and became the monopoly for computers.
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