Journal 2

Bitzer talks a lot about rhetoric being specific to the situation-- of the speaker and the audience.  I can think of a lot of political examples relating to this, but for the sake of my own sanity I will resort to a personal situation. For example, last week my roommate texted me "I would really appreciate if you cleaned your dishes." and I felt attacked because she texted only me personally, and through text message it was hard to read her emotion.  However, I later found out that my other two roommates were home with her at the time that she texted me and they said when she spoke it out loud to them it didn't come off as harsh or like an attack.  We briefly discussed it, and they both agreed that if they would have received the message in text form like I did, they would have not felt the same way about what she said.  The rhetoric was completely different when communicated via text message rather than in person, which allowed her to use a lighthearted tone in her voice and show a friendly facial expression.  Therefore, in this case, rhetoric was definitely specific to the two situations, and more like Bitzer's theory than Edbauer.  According to Edbauer, the rhetorical situation is a much more complex web of exigence, and audience and speaker relationships than Bitzer's.  Edbauer says the rhetorical process is free of constraints and is constantly flowing.  Another example that I believe is more relevant to Edbauer's theory is when a song is transcribed into visible lyrics.  It is less rigid because anyone can look at just the lyrics, hear just the song, or do both at the same time. I know that when I'm on Pandora I have the option to do both at once.  I could also do both at once by listening to the song on YouTube and having the lyrics pulled up on a different window.  Whether you're just listening to the song, reading the lyrics, or doing both, you definitely get a different effect from each.  This makes the rhetoric very situational.  Personally, my beliefs align more with Bitzer's.  I believe that you can pick apart the different rhetorical elements without running into too much complexity.