I came to the conclusion that exigence meant an outstanding issue that needs to be addressed. In the speech it was the controversy over the mosque and the kicking off of Ramadan. If you ask me it was a fitting time to get a response or to combine them. A lot of people have voiced their opinions of the topic of the mosque. One day while watching CNN I heard someone say that it was a deliberate plot to mock what took place on September 11th. I know my opinion on it but I am curious to find out what other people think about the mosque being built.
Anyways back to rhetoric. The second part of Bitzer's definition was the audience. Not necessarily the mass it was being targeted too but someone in class mentioned the audience also being someone who has the power to change or fix the exigence. In the case of the mosque it could be many people. Americans, government officials, anyone who can help ease the minds of those uneasy of the matter.
The third part of rhetoric was the constraints. In the speech, technically the law allows the mosque to be built but changing the attitudes is another thing.
One thing that really stood out to me within the speech was Obama's way of pointing out who the enemy actually was. How it was Al Qaeda instead of the entire Muslim culture.
I really enjoyed looking at this speech and interpreting it as rhetoric. Makes you think how often you see rhetoric in your daily lives...
I found it interesting to do a breakdown of Obama's speech while using Bitzer's model of rhetoric as a template. When I first read Obama's speech, I knew it was loaded with rhetoric just by the way it was written but I had a hard time saying exactly what was going on until I looked at it using these three filters. One thing I thought was interesting about the audience of this address is that, as Americans, we were all being addressed, as he was asking us to change our opinions about the freedom of religion. We all have a small power to change the attitude surrounding the situation. I think it is really easy to get caught up in the subject matter when rhetoric is being used, but using Bitzer's template to understand rhetoric makes it easier to look at it objectively.
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