Journal 2

After reading both Bitzer’s Rhetorical Situations, I found that it was easier to read than Edbauer’s Rhetorical Ecology. After about the third time of reading it -- trying to find a connection within both Bitzer’s and Edbauer’s takes on rhetoric, I ended up making a chart that comprised of both perspectives and circled what deemed important to each author. Through this, I found that one modern day example that would fit both definitions, would be the amplitude of Women’s March that happened across the globe in protest of the inauguration of now President Donald Trump. Both Bitzer and Edbauer had an emphasis of exigence in their writings on rhetoric and I believe that this example portrays the exigence as the selected language and banter that the new President portrayed mainly women and minorities during his campaign run that somehow lead him to this leadership position. Those who marched, would portray an audience response to the exigence at hand, standing up for their social and political beliefs of what constitutes a progressive country in the 21st century. Edbauer would find that the exigence is not found within a single moment, but rather a build up of occurrences that ignited an uproar of audience responses. Bitzer, on one hand may be at first a little skeptical i feel like that a public protest could be defined as a rhetoric -- rather, he would define it as an example of an outcome of poor rhetoric, believing that Trump did not appeal correctly to his audience and did not choose his words carefully and selectively, almost as if Trump was demeaning on purpose to reach out to a particular negative audience.. Hmmm. Another example would be the recent uproar from the cast of the play Hamilton, between Vice President Pence. The cast members that take part in the play of Hamilton set off on a debate on the importance of the foundation of rights, set by our founding fathers, such as the freedom of speech and the ability to challenge authority, which lead to Trump demanding an apology from the cast, for “publically humiliating Pence,” who was in the audience that night to uphold the American people's values and to work on behalf of the people. I believe Bitzer, would again find it difficult to pinpoint the exigence, however, I also believe that Edbauer and Bitzer would agree that in disregarding the incidents that lead up to this particular event, that the response Trump gave to the cast, demanding that they apologize, is also in fact an audience response. For obviously Pence did not enjoy the exigence given by the cast and responded by having Trump demand an apology.

Word count: 443