Journal 2: Bitzer and Edbauer

Bitzer’s Rhetorical Situation and Edbauer’s Rhetorical Ecology apply beyond the constraints of the time and place of which they were written. Two examples which help illustrate these rhetorical evaluations are The Women’s Marches that are taking place throughout the country and the use of a group text message to convey information and inform others. Regarding the Women’s March, both Bitzer and Edbauer would agree that the action is a result of an audience responding to an exigence. In this case the exigence would be women and minorities being marginalized by the words and actions of the newly elected president. Referring to Edbauer, in this case the exigence is not confined to a single event or moment, but rather multiple happenings and incidents which insight different feelings in people and merit a response. Bitzer and Edbauer would also agree that the traditional rhetorical triangle would be blurred here because the audience of Trump’s actions becomes the new author and Trump becomes the audience. However, I believe Bitzer may find contention with the idea of a Women’s March as a rhetoric. I believe he would understand that it is a situation which merits a response and to some extent I believe he would find it a rhetorical situation, but perhaps since it is a march, the march itself would not be rhetorical but the signs, protest chants, and speeches given during the event would be. For the example of a group text, the exigence of a situation would be an individual creating a space for dialogue between a selected group of people and beginning a topic of discussion. Similarly, to the previous example, everyone involved can be both a member of the audience and the speaker. Although Edbauer would agree that in this case the audience is not passive, she may find issue with the idea that the audience is set and cannot be expanded, and Bitzer may not find the message rhetorical if it were not in response to an event. The main difference between Edbauer and Bitzer’s ideas of rhetorical events is that Edbauer is more open and accepting of the concept of rhetoric as a feedback loop. At this point in the course, I find Edbauer’s more accurate to my own beliefs towards writing because it is a continuous discourse which elicits responses while accounting for experience and not focusing too strictly on realism.