Velvet and Blenders

I began reading the Bernays and Lippmann articles with a bad attitude. Maybe bad attitude isn't the right choice of words...perhaps disappointed is a better word? I hate e-reserves. As someone who is very into highlighting and circling, e-reserves bothers me because I can't make all my little notes on the text. Why not just print them out, right? Well, I'm cheap. Paper is in high demand in my apartment, (as some professors can attest to who have received papers from me with old papers printed on the backs of them) and I get even more disappointed printing out 7 page articles I will probably only look at a few times. So what does this have to do with audience approach and rhetorical situation? In regards to the pro-propaganda Bernays, we've all been on the other side of advertisement and media manipulation. Watching that late night infomercial could be the reason you are now a less-than-proud owner of a blender. Bernays believes that the situational circumstances of a political candidate like Coolidge, or the fashion industry and its growing taste for velvet make voters and consumers the masters of their own domain. He presents propaganda as educational, in the case of margarine. He said margarine was getting a bad rap because people were misinformed on its ingredients, so thankfully for the nutritionists and doctors who set everybody straight on what really goes into the greasy spread, the margarine industry could prosper once again. In the case of the velvet, Bernays says Americans didn't know what an elegant textile they had on their hands with velvet. They just needed the approving nod of the French couture to give them they push they needed for it to become popular and successful. How does this relate to my aforementioned example of the blender and e-reserves. Relax, I'm getting there. Let's say you saw that same infomercial for the blender at 2:00 in the afternoon as you were on your way out to class. You might not have bought that blender. You would have had other things on your mind, like did I grab all my books? Do I have my keys? But at 2:00 in the morning, you're bored, trying to go to sleep, and the only thing on is that persuasive commercial about the blender. So you get it, because the host has made some really good points and it is only three easy payments of $19.99...As for e-reserves, if these articles were in a book, I could've made notes and highlighted like I like too. My post probably would have been a lot better without these annoying examples about velvet and blenders, and then you wouldn't have to read such a boring post. :-)