Journal #2

Journal Entry 2

What is a rhetorical situation? Both Bitzer and Edbauer write about their theories of what they believe is rhetorical.

An example of a piece of writing from my everyday life would be a tweet from one of my favorite comedians, Matt Bellassai. Matt Bellassai tweets frequently about funny or awkward situations that most people can relate to. Recently, with the election coming up soon, Matt Bellassai has been blowing up twitter with hilarious, politically related tweets. One tweet that he posted recently stated, "Why do all of Donald Trump's speeches sound like he's vowing to capture the power rangers." 

Matt Bellassai posts tweets very similar to this one many times a day. With his strong social media following, he is able to share his opinions to many people and maybe even affect their opinions and actions. Matt Bellassai frequently tweets about his hatred for Donald Trump in order to enact social change and to make sure that people do not end up voting for Trump in the upcoming election.

Matt Bellassai's tweets would fall under Bitzer's definition of a rhetorical work. One of Bitzers theories explains that a rhetorical work is simply a, "response to a situation of a certain kind." He also explains that a rhetorical work's function is to enact change in the world. Matt Bellassai has a large young adult audience and his tweets are able to reach thousands of young teenagers like me. His daily tweets are used to persuade young adults to not vote for Donald Trump. He is definitely responding the situation of the upcoming election and trying to get more people to vote for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump. 

Edbauer disagrees with a lot of Bitzers ideas about the definition of Rhetoric. The whole beginning of his article criticizes Bitzer. Edbauer explains that Bitzer’s theories have stretched people’s ideas of what “rhetorical publicness” into a “contextual framework.” According to Edbauer, Bitzer’s theories, “permanently troubles sender-receiver models.” He also critiques Bitzers theory that rhetoricians write in order to solve problems. Edbauer might disagree that Matt Bellassai’s tweets are so clearly rhetorical.