Bitzer Reading

After reading Bitzer, a few things come to mind.

Bitzer says a rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to the situation, in the same sense that an answer comes into existence as a response to a question.  He says the rhetorical situation dictates the significant physical and verbal responses as well as the observations made. When he goes to talk about the fishermen speaking about catching fish, It made sense. When thinking about video games, is this why people get mad and swear if they lose or can't figure something out?

Bitzer used some pretty good examples to get his point across, but the fact that it was done in 1968 made it feel like I was reading his ground breaking thesis paper on rhetoric discourse, and some of his sentences would run on and on, to the point where I would run out of breath, just reading it.

He talks about three constituent parts make up any rhetorical situation. 1 Exigence, or problem existing in the world. An exigence is not rhetorical when it cannot be changed by human interaction. 2.  Audience, Rhetorical discourse promotes change through its influence of an audiences decision and actions. Members of an audience can function as mediators of change. 3. Constraints, are made up of people, events, objects and relations that limit decisions and actions.

A rhetorical situation may be defined as a complex of persons, events, objects and relations presenting an actual or ptiential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse. Basically, the orator is invited by the situation. But it must be a fitting response. No one at the Gettysburg Address wanted to hear about the price of tea in China. My fitting response to this reading is, we need more pictures, less words.