Bits of Bitzer

The last time Bitzer's words graced the pages before me, I was a child- I mean not really, but I felt like one while reading his work. Since then,  I have become much more understanding and have grown, and continue to grow, an ability to articulate his concepts and ideas concerning the rhetorical situation. Thank goodness Wendy handed his work to me from the start, because the third time really is a charm.

Bitzer begins by discussing the theory of rhetoric and two of its main elements, situation and persuasion. He explains that rhetoric "comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself", and in my mind, this basically means that rhetoric is here, there, or even that for a specific reason, and the reason, results from a certain situation, a situation that can be modified with the use of persuasion. Without a situation there is no rhetoric, which is why we have rhetorical situations. 

The article further explains that a rhetorical situation has three main constituents, exigence, audience and constraints. Every rhetorical situation has/needs exigence/exigency, that is presented to an audience that is attempted to be influenced and transformed into mediators of change to the exigency of the situation; All the while there are constraints, underlying or obvious ones (beliefs, interests, documents, images, facts, motives, etc.), that have the power to diminish or improve the affect of the rhetors attempt to provoke it's audience to take action.

Phew.

To try and put it simply...(which is rather difficult)..but I will give it a shot:

Every rhetorical situation must have a need or a demand (the exigence), one that a rhetor can attempt to persuade an audience to act upon in order to meet the need or demand, but while the rhetor is attempting this persuasion there are always factors that affect and constrain the decisions and actions of the audience and even the rhetor themselves.

Well, that's all for now folks. Let's go talk it out in class.