8-Bitzer

In The Rhetorical Situation, Lloyd Bitzer, expounds on and explores the question, “What is a rhetorical situation?”  He shows us that rhetoric is born from situation; that rhetoric cannot exist on its own.  Rhetoric is intended to cause action through discourse to improve a situation that calls attention to itself.

 Further on in the work, he identifies the three components of rhetorical situations and defines the conditions that they are rhetorical. The components are: the exigency (something which needs to be changed), the audience and constraints.  An exigency must be able to be positively changed through discourse to be considered rhetorical.  An audience, on the other hand, must be constituted of people who can bring about the modifications to the exigence to be considered rhetorical.  In all situations, there are constraints inherent in the rhetor and her style as well as outside constraints which influence how effectively the exigence can be modified.

Games could be said to follow a similar composition as rhetorical situations, albeit under slightly differing definitions.  Inherent in every game is some sort of exigence, something which is awry and needs to be solved in order to achieve progression within the game.  The audience for this exigence is the individual or group engaged in playing the game; they are the only ones who can directly influence and modify the exigence. 

 But what of the rhetor?  In fact, who is the rhetor?  The rhetor in games is the individual or creative team that has created the game.  They are the ones who have presented the entire fictional rhetorical situation for the audience to experience and influence.  They are constrained by resources, the platform, their individual strengths and weakness and more.  The audience also feels these constraints through such things as the physical user interface and playback system.