Blog #9

Although I honestly did not understand much of Bitzer's work titled " The Rhetoric Situation," I can say I understood the fact the Bitzer explicitly states that rhetoric works come about because they are in response to a certain situation. Also Bitzer wanted to make it known that rhetorics come about for the purpose of causing change or action in the world. Bitzer even goes as far as to say that rhetoric situations act much like a math problem, where the situation is the problem and the rhetoric work is the solution. Throughout the essay there was an underlying factor that rhetoric situations contain 3 parts, exigence, audience and constraints.

Exigence- Bitzer defines an exigence as "a defect, an obstacle or something waiting to be done." He also makes the statement that an exigence isn't rhetorical unless it can be modified in some fashion.

Audience- Bitzer also states that audience is defined as only those that react to the rhetoric situation and commit to change the situation. So in other words, if someone listens to rhetoric speech and ins't moved by it, then they aren't considered the true audience.

Constraints- Constraints to Bitzer are considered anything that gets in the way of the audience being moved and changing an exigence. Some examples include beliefs, traditions, facts or motives. Constraints can come from the person giving the speech, or the person listening to the speech.

One thing that I was not to clear on was the fact that Bitzer said the situation is what affects the rhetorical response and that the speaker does not and cannot affect it.