Throughout the article, Bitzer discusses how certain situations can be labeled with adjectives that can imply certain characteristics about possible events that tend to occur in these situations. Bitzer mentions that describing rhetoric as situational is unusual since it is typically referring to a speaker, audience, or subject which he claims are all standard terms in rhetorical vocabulary. But, Bitzer continues on to mention that rhetoric seen as situational is nothing more complex than a writer or author attempting to discourse rhetoric. This author also highlights the relationship between situation and discourse, and that it is the situation which initiates the discourse into action. He also claims that rhetoricians typically focus on capturing the details regarding how the speaker or writer enacts their rhetoric and their discourse of rhetoric instead of the true nature of the rhetorical situation. In fact, Bitzer claimed that a rhetorical situation is “a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance” and that “rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to situation”.
In the article, Bitzer describes exigence as “an imperfection” that is marked by urgency or as an obstacle. Exigences are not always rhetorical, and can only be labeled as rhetorical exigences if they could be modified or manipulated in some way regarding discourse. Examples of exigences that are not rhetorical are death, natural disasters, and crime.
This week, I read an article regarding two fraternities here at Florida State that had been announced as suspended due to violations of conduct last semester. The two fraternities mentioned in the article were Chi Phi and Alpha Epsilon Pi. The mode of this article is text-based and is read online. The media of this article is digital, which basically means its accessible online using the internet. The audience of the article is Florida State University students involved with Greek Life and adults who are concerned. The genre of this article is informative. The style of the article is professional and informative, with images and explicit detailed descriptions to suggest severity of the situation. Lastly, the design of this article can be labeled as “news article-like”. Together, these elements combine to convey that these fraternity suspensions are a serious matter and that Greek Life at Florida State is changing.
Article Link: http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/01/17/two-fsu-fraternities-sanctioned-suspensions-campus-several-years/1042398001/