The Rhetorical Situation

I find it interesting that in Bitzer's "The Rhetorical Situation" it seems to become so clear what the rhetorical situation is and how many situations can become rhetorical but not all do. What I understand from the reading is that almost any situation can become a rhetorical situation. At first, I just assumed that the rhetorical situation only occurred with grand speeches just as the Gettysburg Address. I believed that only a situation of great impact could be a rhetorical situation. However, Bitzer argues that it need not only be a situation of great impact, but rather any situation that calls for discourse and that the discourse changes what was previously thought. Basically, what I understand is that if a situation calls for some discourse action to be taken to change the situation, then that situation is a rhetorical situation. Obviously, this is not all that constitutes a rhetorical situation, but this blog is for me to try to understand exactly what Bitzer is trying to tell us.

When I read Vatz's myth article, I wasn't sure which one I believed to be correct, Vatz or Bitzer. Vatz makes a good argument when he mentions how situations are not found but created. He refers to the Cuban Missile Crisis and how this situation was brought about through rhetoric before it even became a situation. I would like to see what others say about both of these articles since each author makes excellent points.