The Rhetoric of everyday life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCK6wQ0BoxI

The Rhetoric of everyday life

There are some well- developed theories available for studying how such influence works. These are theories of rhetoric, or persuasion. The world rhetoric has many meanings, and we will examine more of them in the book “Thanks for Arguing” Many people understand rhetoric to mean the ways in which words influence people. “that’s just a lot of rhetoric,” we say, and by that we mean that it’s just so many empty but persuasive words, In this book we will work from a different, expanded understand of what rhetoric means: the ways in which signs influence people, the rhetoric dimension of the everyday objects, action, and events to which we are constantly exposed, we will also see what it means to refer to these everyday objects, actions, and events as popular culture. Such men as he be never at hearts ease/ While they behold a greater than themselves”-Julius Caesar, Shakespeare

In a world so connected by technology, where does rhetoric fit in? In a day and age where 140 characters can change someone’s life over Twitter, what does the way something is worded or phrased have to do with how we conduct ourselves?
I chose this quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar because I believe it accurately describes our life and times; there are those of us who text, tweet and Facebook freely but then have a hard time expressing ourselves in a well-constructed argument, a thesis or dissertation of sorts. The ever shrinking world provides us with opportunities we could have only dreamed of ten years ago. But does that mean we're equipped for them simply because of technological advances? Or is there disconnect between current "Techno Rhetoric" if you will, and "Traditional Rhetoric?'