Post 6

Grant-Davie's article "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents" seemed to be very much like like "Backpacks and Briefcases."  I felt Grant-Davie's article went more in depth on the the topics of exigence, rhetors, audience, and constraints.  Very similar definitions of exigence are given in both articles, but Grant-Davie uses the idea of discourse to explain this.  He ask three questions, what is the discourse about, why is the discourse needed, and what is the discourse trying to accomplish?  He discusses rhetors as possibly a sponsoring corporation, an ad agency, or famous people acting as spokesmen.  The audience(s) are the people the rhetors are trying to reach through discourse.  The constraints is said to be the hardest part to analyze of a rhetorical situation. Grant-Davie explains the first man to define rhetorical situation, Bitzer, defined constraints as more of an aid to the rhetor.  He is saying there are both positive and negative constraints.  There are constraints by the audience, like their beliefs and attitudes, and there are constraints by the rhetor, like his/her style and character.  Then Bitzer also believes there are constraints in the rhetoric itself.  Grant-Davie chooses to exclude the constraints of the audience and the rhetor.   

The rhetor of my advertisement is the World Wildlife Fund, an organization working to bring awareness to protecting and supporting the environment.  The main focus of this particular picture is the effect of global warming.  Earth is "melting" like ice cream.  While maybe not too terribly at this point, the effects of global warming are being noticed as shown in the dribble of liquid down the cone.  The exigence is to bring awareness to the fact that the world is changing and growing warmer.   The ad has no words so it invites audiences to consider the causes to global warming in hopes we can change, even a little bit, to help battle this growing problem.  The audience would be anyone around young adult and older.  People who drive to work and emit carbon dioxide into the air or large corporations doing the same and causing other pollutions.  I can already see that working out my constraints will be hard for me if I am to follow Grant-Davie.  I think a constraint would be who the ad reaches.  WWF has many ads and this is probably only the fourth or fifth one I personally have seen.  I am assuming many people have not seen this or any other ads of theirs.  If I include rhetors and audience in my constraints, I think the attitudes and beliefs have a huge role in this.  Ohio has crazy weather and when it gets extremely cold, people make comments, and I have seen cartoons saying something to the effect that global warming is fake.  Some people really do not think this is a matter to be concerned with.  One little state on this earth does not account for overall temperatures.  Some people just do not see past their own area.