Journal Entry #6

I don't know if I was supposed to put it in the dropbox, but I couldn't find a link for the sixth journal. 1. Lloyd Bitzer states that rhetorical situation is not context (which is simply a condition of communication). Although certain situations demand a rhetoric discourse, the discourse cannot always demand the situation. Bitzer also believes that rhetoric is not synonymous to persuasion. 2. Bitzer believes that “rhetorical situation” has three parts: exigences: the audience needs to be limited in decision and action, and this limitation needs to influence the person speaking to the audience. Basically, these three parts make up a complex situation with people, relations, objects and events that creates a problem. This problem should be solved when discourse can change people’s actions to modify or fix the problem. 3. “Exigence” is defined as a defect or something that needs to be fixed.Exigences can only be considered rhetorical if they can be changed.Bitzer gives the examples of weather, death, and natural disasters that would be considered exigences, but not rhetorical because they cannot be fixed.Also, exigences that can be fixed by other means than discourses would not be considered rhetorical as well.An example of a rhetorical exigence would be the Go Green campaigns.They encourage citizens to use less gas and recycle to better our environment and many Americans have tried to fix the current predicament.