Journal 2

            This weekend I watched the Jacksonville Jaguars play the Green Bay Packers for their opening game of the NFL season. Afterwards I looked up articles to see what commentators had to say about the match up. Although the Packers had won, articles were entitled things such as “Packers survive Jaguars in unexpected thriller” and “Jaguars won’t take moral victory”. All of the articles employ rhetoric in some form to draw readers in and to get them excited for their teams. There is a sense of pride and alarm for the Packers, for winning the first game yet almost succumbing to the Jags. The flip side is how the Jags are praised for their improvements since years past but still face a reality of a losing season.

           

            Lloyd Bitzer and Jenny Edbauer would have different perspectives about the rhetoric used in the football articles. Bitzer would see the articles as rhetorical discourse responding to a situation, which in this case is the Jaguars losing and the Packers winning, depending on the team the writer is expecting his or her audience to support. For me, a Jags fan, the situation is the pressing need for the team to win games to prevent humiliation throughout the NFL league. Biter prioritizes three components with rhetorical situation: exigence, audience, and constraints. The Jags losing is the exigence; it is a problem for the team and they must make improvements for next week’s game. The audience for the articles would be football fans. The articles will invariably influence Jags fans in that, despite the loss, there is a lot of potential for the team and to rally behind them in support. Constraints in the articles are that the writers must acknowledge the statistics of the game, conceding the Packers played better, and the Jags had too many penalties that hurt them. Despite wanting to build the team up, the facts of the game cannot deny it is an imperfect team with much to improve.

           

            Edbauer believes rhetoric should be seen as ecological rather than situational. Exigence is fluid and created by material experiences and public feelings. With the situation in constant movement and shifting, Edbauer could say the articles should not be used as predictions for the rest of the seasons for the Jags and Packers. She would argue too many things could change in the weeks to come to aptly predict if one or the other will have a good season.