Rhetorical Situation...hmm...

Sitting in the library after trying to get through Llyod F. Bitzer's writing on "The Rhetorical Situation," I'm starting to get overwhelmed and I haven't even finished it yet. And I'm starting to sweat, but blame that on the sun beating down on me, for the most part at least.

Anyways, I'm currently having trouble differentiating rhetorical situation and persuasive rhetoric. Bitzer says that there are three elements of the complex known as rhetorical situation:

1. Exigence: "An imperfection marked by urgency,"it's only considered rhetorical when it is "capable of positive modification."
2. Audience: The audience, as Bitzer states, is a group who consists only of people who are "capable of being influneced by discourse AND of being mediators of change." In other words, not just a group of readers or listeners. The audience on rhetorical situation must be able to mediate change.
3. Constraints: Made up of "persons, events, objects, and relations which are part of the situation," simply because they all possess the power to "constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence."

This is when I see parallels between someone giving a situational rhetoric speech and a persuasive speech using rhetoric. Although Bitzer specifically states that these two are not the same, I'm still having trouble separating them.

In a persuasive speech, the author uses rhetoric in order to convince the audience that his/her way is right. The "exigence" can be any controversial topic in my eyes. One that can be changed for the good, which is what the author, for example, is trying to do.

Then there's the audience. Now that I look at it, this is where one difference can be argued. The audience in a normal rhetoric speech of persuasion is mostly just a group of listeners interested in the cause. There are also those who are indeed knowledgable enough about the topic to mediate a change. But not always. The audience always needs to be capable of mediating change in the case of rhetorical situation, according to Bitzer.

Finally, constraints. Here's another source of confusion for me. Maybe I'm just over thinking this. Is he saying that constraints are the main points or ingredients of rhetorical situation? That's the best I can come up with for now...

Well, expect a follow up post tomorrow after class since I'm still a bit lost in Bitzer's huge words and long complex sentences filled with some jargon I'm not quite following. I will get back to you on this!