Kaitlin Bennett aka “The Gun Girl” visited Ohio University’s campus unannounced on February 17, 2020, causing a group of students to protest her being there. Amplification
Parody: Public Service Announcement/CommercialGun Rights Activist: Hello, do you love your children? Do you think they need extra protection? Well I'm here to say that they might and the best way to feel safe is to have a gun. With a gun, you can walk around with it on you hip or around your shoulder like the great Kaitlin Bennett. There's no need to worry just buy a gun. ExplanationThe point of this was to be sarcastic and not to make gun rights activists feel bad but to try and warn them of the dangers of owning guns. Now I don't think this picture is very possible but I do think it is possible for people that own guns to use them to solve whatever problems that they might have. The main point of this Ad or P.S.A was not to slander gun rights activists but just to make people really think about why they need a gun.
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In the sports world Tom Brady is one of the most popular/glorified players so anytime he is mentioned there usually is something positive behind it. Those who have negative things to say are usually fans of the opposing teams that The Patriots and Tom Brady ran through on their way to a Super Bowl. Rhetoric is everywhere and it is saturated sports too, and I want to focus on the rhetoric in the sports world, more specifically the use of rhetoric when talking about Tom Brady. Bill Belichick is a revered coach in football and when speaks highly of someone it automatically means that whatever player he is talking about is good. Since he coached Tom Brady that makes Tom even more great in everyone’s eyes. In Aristotle's model of rhetoric public opinion is mutable, in flux contingent and a culture bond. The articles and statements throughout the sports world are usually contingent on how a specific player is doing on the field/court and what they do outside of their respective sports. Tom Brady is seemingly unstoppable on the field and even more unstoppable off the field because he does so many good things for people in need. For example, Bill Belichick said, “I think Tom is one of the most consistent players that I've ever coached. He works hard every week. There are no ups and downs with him”. On the surface this is just a normal statement but as Aristotle’s method states, culture bond is important and in sports culture, a simple compliment from Belichick means way more. A lot of the things said about Brady are opinionated which appeals to Ethos but depending on who is saying it, Pathos, whatever is being said means more. When an opposing teams fan complains about Brady it doesn’t seem important because if we pay attention to Pathos, who’s saying it, then it just seems very biased. When a person of power or a more important figure in an opposing team’s organization says something, it will be taken more seriously. Overall opinions are always changing but the value/importance depends on who the rhetor is in each situation Rhetoric is everywhere but Tom Brady may be so popular, hated and loved, that the rhetoric surrounding him may morph into its own style of “Brady Rhetoric”. You can’t just love him or hate him because the opinions surrounding him are always in flux, I think I’m going to patent the term “Brady Rhetoric” what do you think? In this blog post I will explore Lloyd Bitzers’ definition of rhetorical situation and I will use a personal situation which helped me understand it better. Lloyd Bitzer defines rhetorical situation as “the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse”. Bitzer also argues that there must be a situation for rhetors to create arguments. He explains the making of a rhetorical situation which are Exigence, Audience, and Constraints. Exigence is the problem or issue that causes someone to write or speak. The audience is who the rhetor is trying to persuade, and the constraints are the rules of the situation; examples could be the atmosphere of the environment or the beliefs of the audience.
A personal example of a rhetorical situation could be cleaning our can opener at work. My boss always emphasizes cleaning the can opener so she's the rhetor of this situation. The exigence of the situation is her desire to keep the can opener clean because if it gets dirty then it won’t work well anymore. Without the desire or want there is no exigence according to Bitzer. The audience would be us chefs and her bosses, she wants to convey the importance of cleaning the can opener. Every time the can opener gets stuck, she pretty much yells about it which helps get her point across. The constraints of this situation would be the lack of belief that her bosses could have towards her argument and also how they are feeling. The store could be very busy so her bosses could be already stressed out which could make them just ignore her concerns. Her argument itself could cause constraint in the situation also. The way she expresses the argument could have a positive or negative affect on her audience. For example, if she yelled at her bosses the way she has yelled at us the would be reluctant to hear her out, she’d honestly get fired but that is beside the point. Not all constraints are negative so an example of a positive constraint is if one of her bosses had already seen the can opener lock up before which could make them agree with her argument even more. I think this situation is a good example or a rhetorical situation because all three things that Bitzer covered, exigence, audience and constraints, are also covered in this situation. The exigence being my bosses desire to keep the can opener clean; audience, us chefs and her bosses and constraints how her audience already feels about the can opener, how she talks to her bosses about it, how her bosses are feeling that day, etc. |
AuthorHello, my name is Jeremy Chenault. I'm an English major at Wright State University, I love to stay active, write poetry and most importantly learn. A more in depth idea about me can be found here, A Little More. |