Rhetorical Situation notes

• Rhetorical situation is the context of a rhetorical event that consists of an issue, an audience, and a set of constraints. 
• Bitzer first came up with the idea of rhetorical situation. 
• Bitzer described the rhetorical situation as "A complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant identification of the exigence. 
• Vatz responded to Bitzers theory in 1973. 
• Vatz believed that rhetoric defines a situation.