Phew! This was a long read, and I did have to read it out loud to myself. (If a piece is particularly wordy, I force myself to read it out lout that way I can't skim over it as a result of boredom.) While I did have to force myself to pay attention and interpret the information every so often, I do think I understand the piece. (I mean, we'll see tomorrow for sure, but let me see what I can do right now.)
A rhetorical situation is a man-made situation that requires man-made change (or if not change, at least requires to be addressed) through the use of rhetorical discourse (or speech.) An extingence is the topic of conversation. The obstacle or even that needs to be address or changed. (An exstingence must be realistic - as opposed to fictitious, - and an exstingence maybe be short- or long-lived. An exsitngence may change and evolve over time, may die out entirely, or may live on forever.) The audience of a rhetorical discourse must be a mediator of change, or the people being spoken to must be capable of being influenced. Someone who opposes the viewpoint of the exstingence would not be a rhetorical audience. Typically, it is a constraint of the exstingence that holds an audience back from becoming a rhetorical audience. A constraint is something that holds the audience in opposition (a religion, personal belief or attitude, background, facts, tradition, interests and motives, and so on...) A constraint is also something that can influence how the rhetor gives his discourse. For example, a religious background can influence how a speech is written and presented by the rhetor, and a religious background can also influence how that same speech is interpreted.
A fast example that just popped into my head: an episode of the TV show, Intervention.
Exstingence: A family member has a drug addiction problem and that needs to be addressed and/or changed.
-- This is a rhetorical exstingence because it is a man-made situation not naturally occurring (like a natural disaster) and because it requires man-made change (as opposed to natural fixation.) The exstingence of a drug problem may evolve to address ever-changing severity, or the changing drug of choice. While the exstingence may evolve, the need for a resolution remains the same.
Audience: The rhetorical audience in this situation would be the family staging the intervention, and in only certain instances include the person with the substance abuse issue.
-- This is a rhetorical audience because the family staging the intervention would be mediators of change. The family members are trying to initiate the change.
-- In some instances, if the abuser approaches their abuse with ignorance or denial, they would not be capable of being influenced into change. In other instances, the abuser might be open to change, and in that case would be a rhetorical audience member.
Constraints: Would include anything influencing any audience members to feel the way they do.
-- These might include religious beliefs, personal attitudes and backgrounds, facts or motives.
-- These can relate to both why the audience members might want to initiate change (how the rhetor uses constraints to influence the discourse) and to why the opposition is not open to change.
A rhetorical discourse is more than just persuasion, because in fact, everything is persuasive, as Bitzer argued.
