The Origin(s) of the Rhetorical Situation... of Pandaria

This week’s readings revolve around the idea of the “rhetorical situation.” It was introduced by Bitzer who promoted that “a particular discourse comes into existence because of some specific condition or situation which invites utterance” (4). In other words, the situation dictates the rhetoric. Bitzer’s claim aroused retort and modification from other scholars like Vatz, Biesecker, and Edbauer who basically criticize his idea of the rhetorical situation as too limited in scope because it simply implies rhetoric is an effect or response.

Vatz and Biesecker point out that Bitzer excludes “the intervention of an intending and interpreting speaker-subject” (Biesecker 113). They basically imply that rhetoric creates an effect or response, that the rhetorical situation is created by the speaker. Biesecker also reinvents the audience into the rhetorical situation, rethinking the a priori subject that Bitzer and Vatz are concerned with into a malleable subject that is comparable to the invention of the rhetorical situation that affects it. Edbauer’s contribution in reassessing the rhetorical situation is emphasizing a sense of site in an exigent (rhetorical) situation, a sense of place that is influenced by the same Bieseckerian subjects that encounter it. 

In sum, the rhetorical situation of Bitzer is an effect-response while that of Vatz, Biesecker, and Edbauer are causal-effects.

However... what strikes me about this discourse of rhetorical situations is... while Vatz, Biesecker, and Edbauer debunk Bitzer’s claim, they are in fact reinforcing it. Couldn’t we look at Bitzer’s essay as the “situation which invites utterance,” as the source of existence of the particular discourse on the rhetorical situation, as the origin of doing rhetoric (4)? Biesecker brings this up when she states, “even as it questions the validity of Bitzer’s central proposition, Vatz’s essay simultaneously confirms it. After all, Vatz’s statement is a response to Bitzer’s essay; Vatz reads “The Rhetorical Situation” as itself a situation with an exigence that invites response” (114). I think Biesecker is most convincing by revealing the impasse - rhetorical situation’s origin - and maneuvering between Bitzer and Vatz’s perspectives to reveal something new to the discussion. 

To put the rhetorical situation, Bitzer, Vatz, and particularly Biesecker into relatable terms, I will apply their perspectives to the exigency related to World of Warcraft’s newest expansion Mists of Pandaria. Below is its cinematic trailer, the rhetoric of the launch.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria was released on September 25, 2012. It is the fourth expansion in the series, and it introduces a new playable race and class, locations, features, and other content to the game. This launch is basically the situs, “a bordered, fixed space-location,” the unchangeable definite situation that occurred (Edbauer 9). And it is from here that each essay's perspective diverges.

Bitzer would locate the origin of the rhetorical situation (video <--> audience) within the launch itself. The video is a response to a situation, is given significance by the situation, and is needed by the situation; the launch is the necessary condition for the video and controls its response. Vatz, on the other hand, would identify the speaker, or the producers of the video (or maybe the video itself) in this circumstance, as the origin of the rhetorical situation. The video is rhetorical because of its choice in what to depict that is relevant to the game (new content) and because it produces a response in its audience. Biesecker would identify the rhetorical situation’s origin as the audience who is affected by the video. The video is the incident which influences the identity of players and their relationship with each other (does it persuade them to play a Pandaren or Monk class?). Finally, Edbauer would be less concerned with the launch in favor of the complex social relations that precede and follow it. The rhetorical situation is not limited to just the launch, but it includes the ways in which the video’s audience understand the game prior to the launch (pre-expansion), after the launch (individual gameplay in expansion), and how they interact with each other based on their individual understanding (social gameplay).

I think each essay builds on the idea of the rhetorical situation to further its conceptual development rather than suggest a completely different means of understanding it. Vatz, Biesecker, and Edbauer are rhetorical responses to the rhetorical situation that Bitzer created, each perspective influenced by the original essay, each essay exploring another possible and equally important origin to the same situation - the origin of the rhetorical situation.

Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.1 (1968): 1-14.

Biesecker, Barbara A. “Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from Within the Thematic of Différance.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 22.2 (1989): 110-30. 

Edbauer, Jenny. “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35.4 (2005): 5-24.

WorldofWarcraft. “World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Cinematic Trailer.” YouTube. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. 16 August 2012. Web. 9 November 2012.