| This doctoral thesis uses close textual reading to analyze Congressional hearings on global climate change between 1976 and 1996 and describes the rhetorical strategies congressional members use within their opening statements to establish and control the rhetorical situation. It then applies those findings to Bitzer's theory of the rhetorical situation (first published in 1968) to extend our understanding of the relationships between the rhetorical situation's essential elements: exigences, constraints, rhetors, audience, remedies, goals, and situation. It additionally explores the evolutionary nature of the rhetorical situation. The author suggests amending the rhetorical situation to reflect the tight relationship between exigences, remedies and goals, and to create a space for the rhetor that is commensurate with the role assigned to mediating audiences and allows for their independence and equality. Finally, the thesis suggests how rhetoricians might use the amended rhetorical situation as a heuristic; how teachers of rhetoric, technical communication and composition could use the heuristic to prepare students for public deliberation; and, finally, how advocacy groups involved in policy decision making might employ the heuristic to locate and make use of intervention sites in policy activities. |
