Journal Entry #2

An example of Bitzer’s rhetorical situation is when President Donald Trump campaigned around the United States to run for President. Bitzer focuses on three major aspects of a rhetorical situation, which are audience, exigence, and constraints. During his campaign, President Trump catered what he said to his audience to try to persuade them. He used the concept of exigence because he conveyed that the state that our nation is a problem, relating it to a crisis. He used constraints to speak differently to different states, catering to the audience’s beliefs, norms, age, etc.

Edbauer differs from Bitzer, because she says that rhetoric is ecological, not situational. She says that rhetoric is free of constraints, and is always changing and flowing. She believes that exigence isn’t something that is concrete. The meaning of things changes depending on the person. She says that an exigence is different for each person depending on their feelings, beliefs, and situations. Edbauer’s idea of rhetoric is more complex than Bitzer’s. An example of this would be if students are at a seminar about campus safety, the students who have experienced some sort of issue are more likely to take it more seriously and understand it better than students who haven’t dealt with an issue. The meaning of the exigence differs from each student.

I agree with a mixture of these concepts. I think that a speaker or an author can give something meaning and convey that meaning, but the audience can also interpret it differently depending on their experiences. For example, an author could write a work to persuade the audience to agree with gun safety. The author had a certain idea in mind to write what he did, however, depending on how different members of the audience were raised, and what their past experiences with guns are, will depend how they interpret the message.