Blog Post #3

For my third blog post I will be discussing Jenny Edbauer’s piece, “Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies” and her thoughts on the word rhetoric. The author, Jenny Edbauer, works in the English department at The Pennsylvania University. The primary audience for this text seems to be her writing peers as this article was in the thirty-fifth volume of the 2005 Rhetoric Society Quarterly. The text implies that rhetoric is something that we encounter. It is something that we experience. In a similar way to Gee’s discourses, Edbauer’s interpretation of rhetoric says that it can be different things depending on the situation you’re in; it relies on outside circumstances to exist. The main argument of this text is that rhetoric is much more than the overly simplified models of communication, sender, receiver, and text. Rhetoric is how we interact with the world around us and how it can change society as a whole. Edbauer’s main example is of the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” which is her experience of rhetoric having an effect in her life. “Keep Austin Weird” had a lasting effect on the city of Austin and inspired many similar slogans such as the Austin Public Library handing out stickers featuring the phrase “Keep Austin Reading.” Edbauer also recalls a memory of her and her friend finding a piece of paper with a phrase in block letters that read “Keep Austin fucking normal. Conform. It’s just easier.” Edbauer states that the sign itself is weird, thus making it quite ironic as it is portraying the opposite of the message it is trying to get across. The texts primary rhetorical purpose is to provide its own take on how rhetoric is viewed in society today by providing more recent, relatable examples of real life rhetoric.