Blog post 9

The three constituents of rhetorical situation, as defined by Bitzer, include exigence, audience, and constraints. Exigence entails the unavoidable situations that need to be written or talked about in order to be dealt with. An example of rhetorical exigence involves violent actions against others. This is a problematic issue that can result in injuries to others or even death. These kinds of issues are those that should be dealt with and can be written about in order to persuade those who have leverage on the matter in changing the predicament. This is where audience comes into play. In order to be productive in persuading a group of people to agree with an argument, certain modes that grab the attention of that certain group of viewers should be considered. For example if I were to write a persuasive paper about how homosexual people are discriminate against in sports, I would probably want to address it to someone in an important position such as a coach or the manager of the team. Audience is one of the most important aspects of any paper and determines the ways in which one will go about writing it. Constraints are people, events, objects, and relations that have the power to affect the ability to change or modify an exigence. These fall within two categories: artistic and inartistic. The artistic constraints used are ethos, logos, and pathos. On the other hand, inartistic constraints consist of facts and data, things that exist outside of the authors mind.