A rhetorical situation or event is one that contains an issue that applies to an audience accompanied by a set of constraints. Bitzer describes the three constituents that appear in a rhetorical situation as exigence, audience, and constraints.
1. Exigence: I find this pretty hard to define and talk about, but from the reading I get the feeling and exigence is the base of the situation. The exigence is what the situation or argument is built around because it has examples listed that seem to be problems that require discourse to be solved, or not to be solved. But that lead to another description of a rhetorical exigence because a characteristic it must be able to be modified. Things such as the weather or death would not be rhetorical exigences, but racism or the pollution in the air caused by humans would be.
2. Audience: Rhetorical situations always require an audience simply because of what a rhetorical situation is, aka a persuasive or argumentative action. An audience is described as a reader or hearers of the action being disputed, but the audience can only be classified as an audience of the particular rhetoric argument if they can contribute to the decision of the final outcome or change. So, anyone that rhetorical situation is directed at, maybe the people of a town that wants to pass or deny the legalization of weed and come to the meetings about it would be an audience.
3. Constraints: From the reading I see constraints as a two part description. Constraints are seen as people, events, etc. that could impact the change or final decision, but the sub part of the people making the constraints are stemmed from their beliefs, opinions, interests, and traditions. The list is longer than the but the gist is a constraint can come from a person but the reason behind their constraint is what makes up their reasoning behind it.
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