(LATE) Journal 2

                Bitzer takes a rather rigid stance on writing. According to him, a person’s situation is what motivates them to write, and he seems intent on focusing primarily on that. Rather than seeing something as creative, he would interpret something as being even subliminally persuasive. The author may not even know that they are trying to incite some sort of response in their readers, but their writings can exhibit those subconscious desires. An example of this would be the book “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green. He intended to write a book to entertain young readers by adding a tragic twist to the popular genre of teen romance novels. He even fabricated their illnesses and treatments, so none of it was real. However, the response it had on fans was far greater than any report or documentary on real cancer would have been. Suddenly, more young people cared about the issue, and the lives of children with cancer became more of a point of focus.

                Rice takes a different approach from Bitzer. She claims that media and compositions are constantly shifting and being altered, so the meaning of a specific piece changes drastically over time. Changes are not caused by the composer, but by the audience of the piece. One example I can think of is the “meme” known as Pepe the Frog. It was originally used simply to make relatable jokes and make people laugh, like many memes, but it has recently been labeled as a hate symbol because of its use in the white nationalist movement known as Alt-Right. Now the image is known to stand for their beliefs of racism, white supremacism, nativism, homophobia, antifeminism, and Neo-Nazism. The meaning of the image changed drastically, from one of humor, to one of hatred and oppression. The creator of the image has even explicitly expressed his regret that it has transformed into a symbol of negativity.

                Bitzer and Rice are quite different in their views, since Bitzer is focused more on the constraints and exigence of a piece, Rice is more concerned with the impact said piece would have on an audience.  Bitzer claims that the author creates the meaning of a piece, but Rice argues that it is the audience.

                Personally, I agree more with Rice simply because I could never believe that writing is ever as rigid as Bitzer makes it out to be.