Journal #2

Blitzer writes a lot about the Rhetorical Situation and what he feels this entails. He defines the rhetorical situation as one that consists of an audience, an issue and a set of constraints. A clear example of this situation would be the Women's March that occurred this past weekend. The issue is President Trumps racist, non inclusive, mysogynistic proclamations against women's rights in society. The audience is obviously anyone who participated in the marches, who actively try to protest or those who are simply warriors of society in their own ways by even just not supporting Trump's ideals. Next, Blitzer would talk about the set of constraints. In this situation, the set of constraints would be any number of possible things. Constraints could include the people, law enforcement, Republicans/ people who share the views of newly elected President Trump. 

Edenbauer writes about a Rhetorical Ecology. He explains how texts can move through time and space. An example of this could be explained by the different news stations on television. There are tens of different news stations all showing primarily the same news. So, how do people decide which news station they are going to tune in to. People with different political views will tune into their channels. For instance, take CNN and FOX News as examples. CNN has a mostly democratic audience and contrastly, FOX News has a mostly Republican audience. These news stations aren't listed as following one political party nor do their anchors directly exude a certain political following either; but the way their individual text representation of stories travel through "time and space" draw in certain viewers and their audiences are “transformed” as Edenbauer clearly expected. Blitzer and Edenbauer both agree that rhetoric follows a pattern, however Edenbauer believes that text has more of an ecological way about it as it shifts through time.