Assignment 10

1) What did you think of the ad itself? Did the woman have a symbolic meaning?
2) Did the sections "The Rhetorical History of the Macintosh" and "The Rhetorical Context of the 1984 Ad" help you better understand Stein's essay? If so, in what ways? Or was it a section that confused you?

Summary: Stein introduces "the 1984 Macintosh Ad" by beginning with the time and place it appeared, which was the Superbowl. The ad had a different way of advertising, and it wasn't clear to what the director, Ridley Scott was trying to do. This is where Stein comes in and fill in the gaps that people are still unsure of. Stein talks about the '1984' ad relating it to many of the resources that she had use in her essay.

Why?
>>Stein probably wrote this essay because she says, "Although the 1984 ad has been the subject of ongoing popular media attention, it has not been subjected to extensive critical examination" (280). It seems that she wanted to look deeper into something that caught people's view in confusion. She probably wants to clarify specific use(s) in the ad. Stein also states, "this essay contributes to an understanding of the integral role ads play in contributing to and drawing on ideological and cultural discourse" (280), here she's talking what her essay will be based on. Overall, I think Stein just wanted to inform people about this ad, and why it was done the way that it appeared on Superbowl, 1984. This also leads me to wanting to know what she does, so I searched up her name. The essay about her states her interests, "Dr. Stein's scholarly emphasis is in Critical Media Studies, with interests in visual communication, gender, and new technologies, with particular attention to the rhetorical constructions used by technology advertising and social commentary, and to contemporary popular attitudes toward abundance and rhetorics of immortality." The last part of this phrase made me thought about this essay, "The '1984' Macintosh Ad: Cinematic Icons and Constitutive Rhetoric in the Launch of a New Machine."