Rhetoric Society Quarterly Sep 2005

Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorical ecologies

Jenny Edbauer Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

Abstract Whereas earlier work on rhetorical situation focuses upon, the elements of audience, exigence, and constraints, this article argues that rhetorical situations operate within a network of lived practical consciousness or structures of feeling. Placing the rhetorical “elements” within this wider context destabilizes the discrete borders of a rhetorical situation. As an example of this wider context, this article explores the public rhetoric surrounding issues of urban sprawl in Austin, Texas. While public rhetorical movements can be seen as a response to the “exigence” of overdevelopment, it is also possible to situate the exigence's evocation within a wider context of affective ecologies comprised of material experiences and public feelings.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2005-09-01
DOI
10.1080/02773940509391320
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation context

Cited by in this index (144)

  1. Wintermeier (2026)
    Olfactory Rhetoric: Sniffing Out Environmental Problems: by Lisa L. Phillips, T…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  2. Kim (2026)
    Anchoring Memory in a City of Flux: Pyoseok , Han , and Teo in Seoul’s Disperse…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  3. Gallagher et al. (2026)
    Crafting and designing AI-simulated audiences in the writing classroom
    Computers and Composition
  4. Wang (2026)
    The Banality of Rhetoric: Thoughts on an AI-Propelled Rhetorical Economy
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  5. Richards (2026)
    Aura, Objects, and Originality: One Answer to the Question of Marginalized Mate…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Show all 144 →
  1. Ranade et al. (2026)
    Shifting rhetorical agency in multimodal UX composition with AI: Sharing rhetor…
    Computers and Composition
  2. Hayek (2026)
    The National Security Strategy as an Object of Business Communication
    Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  3. Manis et al. (2026)
    Emergency Archives: Investigating Rhetorical (Im) Possibility, Action, and the …
    Rhetoric Review
  4. Fleming (2026)
    “In a Matter of Hours We Could Corral the Whole City”: How a Women’s Group Used…
    Written Communication
  5. Alford (2026)
    The Paradigmatic Aftermath of Digital Rhetoric
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  6. Lee et al. (2026)
    Managing Anti-Asian Violence: White “Hate” Discourses in the COVID-19 Hate Crim…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  7. Kong (2025)
    Visualizing Flint Lead Contamination Risks: Building a Critical Rhetorical Risk…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  8. DiCaglio (2025)
    Parsing the Scalar Situation: Lithium and the Analysis of Concurrent Epistemologies
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  9. Robledo et al. (2025)
    Critical and Creative Quantum Literacies
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  10. Bhatt et al. (2025)
    Ecologies of Research Writing in Chinese Universities
    Written Communication
  11. Rademaekers (2025)
    Rhetoric of Science and Sustainability Inquiry: Ecology, Economics, and Politic…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  12. Gibbons (2025)
    Rhetorical Ventriloquism: From Cameos to Deepfakes
    Rhetoric Review
  13. Littlefield (2025)
    Stochastic Publics: The Emergence and Ethics of AI-Generated Publics in Technic…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  14. Lawson et al. (2024)
    Ecologies, bodies, and OWI teacher preparation: reflecting on a practicum for g…
    Computers and Composition
  15. Kalim (2024)
    Unveiling the affective digital counterpublic: A rhetorical ecological analysis…
    Computers and Composition
  16. Rickert (2024)
    Ambient Engineering: Hyper-Nudging, Hyper-Relevance, and Rhetorics of Nearness …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  17. Walker et al. (2024)
    Symposium on Community-Engaged Environmental Justice Rhetorics
    Rhetoric Review
  18. Cagle (2024)
    “A Proficiency in What We Call Rhetoric”: A Role for Community-Engaged Technica…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  19. Bergen (2024)
    Hostile and Hospitable Programmatic Architectures
    Pedagogy
  20. Jenkins (2024)
    Rhetoric Is Dead? The Fear of Stasis Behind Post-Truth Rhetoric
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  21. Loe (2024)
    “What it is exactly that circulates”: Affective value, re/production, and rheto…
    Computers and Composition
  22. Heilig et al. (2024)
    Augmenting for Accessible Environments: Layering Deep Mapping, Deep Accessibili…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  23. Landqvist (2024)
    Strategic Linguistic Choices within the Swedish Disability Movement: Practical …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  24. Regier (2024)
    Figuring the Topos: Finding Common Ground in Cognitive Environments
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  25. Heilig et al. (2024)
    Augmenting for Accessible Environments: Layering Deep Mapping, Deep Accessibili…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  26. Pellegrini et al. (2024)
    Constructing Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Argumentative Structure of Earl…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  27. Yang et al. (2024)
    Pathological Liars: Algorithmic Knowing in the Rhetorical Ecosystem of Wallstreetbets
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  28. Majdik et al. (2024)
    Rhetoric of/with AI: An Introduction
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  29. Elliott (2024)
    A Dangerous, Costly Neighborhood: A Critique of Blight and Obsolescence Claims …
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  30. Roderick (2024)
    Exigence at the Dawn of Recommendation Media: Dramatizing Salience in Audio Memes
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  31. Arthos (2023)
    Escaping the Prison House of Effects: The Persistence of an Anachronism in Rhet…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  32. Marine (2023)
    Analog to Digital and Back Again: The Rhetoric of Graffiti
    Rhetoric Review
  33. deTar et al. (2023)
    The Long Speech: Rhetorical Abundance in Circulation
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  34. Bost et al. (2023)
    Intimacies of the Common: Enclosure, Solidarity, and the Possibilities of Criti…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  35. Ordeman (2023)
    Histories of Radical Interactionality: Rivers, Disease, Borders, and Laundry
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  36. Bost et al. (2023)
    Capacitating the Deep Commons: Considering Capital and Commoning Practices from…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  37. Hitchcock (2023)
    Framing Palestinian Rights: A Rhetorical Frame Analysis of Vernacular Boycott, …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  38. Richter (2023)
    Network-Emergent Rhetorical Invention
    Computers and Composition
  39. Scott (2023)
    Rearticulating “Crisis” and the U.S.-Mexico Border
    Rhetoric Review
  40. Clay et al. (2022)
    Embodied Participation: (re)Situating Bodies in Collaborative Research
    Communication Design Quarterly
  41. Anderson (2022)
    Rhetorical Stillness: How Byzantine Iconography Offers an Alternative to Rhetor…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  42. Read et al. (2022)
    Introduction: writing infrastructure
    Communication Design Quarterly
  43. Weber (2022)
    Making infrastructure into nature: how documents embed themselves into the bodi…
    Communication Design Quarterly
  44. Kalin et al. (2022)
    Rhetoric, Methodology, and a Question of Onto-Epistemological Access
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  45. Gries et al. (2022)
    Rhetorical New Materialisms (RNM)
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  46. Hanson (2022)
    Performing Data and Visualizing Difference: Developing a Performative Rhetoric …
    College Composition and Communication
  47. Hashlamon (2022)
    Rhetoricity at the End of History: Defining Rhetorical Debility under Neolibera…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  48. Wang (2021)
    The Switched-off Circulation: A Rhetoric of Disconnect
    Rhetoric Review
  49. Swacha (2021)
    Living Visual-voice as a Community-based Social Justice Research Method in Tech…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  50. Edwards (2021)
    Critical infrastructure literacies and/as ways of relating in big data ecologies
    Computers and Composition
  51. Cagle (2021)
    The ethics of researching unethical images: A story of trying to do good resear…
    Computers and Composition
  52. Jones (2021)
    A Counterhistory of Rhetorical Ecologies
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  53. Diab (2021)
    The Rise of the Arab Spring through a Sense of Agency
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  54. Cowan (2021)
    The Constitutive Rhetoric of Late Nationalism: Imagined Communities after the D…
    Rhetoric Review
  55. Walwema et al. (2021)
    “Are You Authorized to Work in the U.S.?” Investigating “Inclusive” Practices i…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  56. Kirkscey (2021)
    mHealth Apps for Older Adults: A Method for Development and User Experience Des…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  57. Lucia et al. (2021)
    The Rhetoric of Google Lens: A Postsymbolic Look at Locative Media
    Rhetoric Review
  58. Nelson (2021)
    Memorializing the Civil Rights Movement: African American Rhetorics and the Int…
    Rhetoric Review
  59. Garc�a (2021)
    Decolonizing the Rhetoric of Church-Settlers
    Across the Disciplines
  60. Koenig (2020)
    The Algorithms Know Me and I Know Them: Using Student Journals to Uncover Algor…
    Computers and Composition
  61. Olman et al. (2020)
    Hybrid collectivity: hacking environmental risk visualization for the anthropocene
    Communication Design Quarterly
  62. Smith (2020)
    The Moving Boundaries of Bears Ears: Ecological Rhetorics and the Shrinking of …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  63. Ehrenfeld (2020)
    “Sharing a World with Others”: Rhetoric’s Ecological Turn and the Transformatio…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  64. Geiger (2020)
    Social Circulation and a Tremendous Individual: Opportunity in Science, Profess…
    College English
  65. Gallagher (2020)
    The Ethics of Writing for Algorithmic Audiences
    Computers and Composition
  66. Mack (2020)
    I Am Murphy Brown: Race and Class in the Rhetorics of Single Mothers by Choice
    Rhetoric Review
  67. Bradshaw (2020)
    Rhetorical Exhaustion & the Ethics of Amplification
    Computers and Composition
  68. Piña (2020)
    Who Cares if Johnny Writes with a Pencil? Or, a Hauntological Historiography of…
    Rhetoric Review
  69. Patton et al. (2020)
    Twenty Years of Community Building: Reflections on/and Rhetorical Ecologies
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  70. Sánchez (2020)
    The Spaces Between: Mapping gaps in the Assemblages of Digital City Renderings
    Computers and Composition
  71. Gray et al. (2020)
    Tracing Ecologies of Code Literacy and Constraint in Emojis as Multimodal Publi…
    Computers and Composition
  72. Edwards (2020)
    Digital Rhetoric on a Damaged Planet: Storying Digital Damage as Inventive Resp…
    Rhetoric Review
  73. Cui (2019)
    Rhetorical Listening Pedagogy: Promoting Communication Across Cultural and Soci…
    Computers and Composition
  74. Balzotti et al. (2019)
    Playable Case Studies: A New Educational Genre for Technical Writing Instruction
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  75. Lang (2019)
    #MeToo: A Case Study in Re-Embodying Information
    Computers and Composition
  76. Wells (2019)
    W. E. B. Du Bois and the Conservation of Races: A Piece of Ecological Ancestry
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  77. Graham et al. (2019)
    There’s No Such Thing as a Scientific Controversy
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  78. Cagle (2019)
    Surveilling Strangers: The Disciplinary Biopower of Digital Genre Assemblages
    Computers and Composition
  79. Stagliano (2019)
    Experiments in Posthumanism: On Tactical Rhetorical Encounters between Drones a…
    Computers and Composition
  80. White-Farnham (2019)
    Resisting “Let’s Eat Grandma”: The Rhetorical Potential of Grammar Memes
    Computers and Composition
  81. Pflugfelder (2019)
    Risk selfies and nonrational environmental communication
    Communication Design Quarterly
  82. Terrill (2019)
    Rhetorical Imitation and Civic Diversity
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric
  83. Jones (2019)
    Sylvan Rhetorics:Roots and Branches of More-than-Human Publics
    Rhetoric Review
  84. Southard (2019)
    Rhetorical Silence and Republican Virtue in Early-American Public Discourse: Th…
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric
  85. Hatfield (2019)
    The Queer Kairotic: Digital Transgender Suicide Memories and Ecological Rhetori…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  86. Gerrard (2019)
    Skills for Citizenship? Writing Instruction and Civic Dispositions in Aotearoa …
    Across the Disciplines
  87. Bradshaw (2018)
    Slow Circulation: The Ethics of Speed and Rhetorical Persistence
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  88. Cryer (2018)
    Withdrawal without Retreat: Responsible Conservation in a Doomed Age
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  89. Bjork (2018)
    Integrating Usability Testing with Digital Rhetoric in OWI
    Computers and Composition
  90. Olson (2018)
    American Magnitude: Frederic Church, Hiram Bingham, and Hemispheric Vision
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  91. Garrison (2018)
    Moving technical communication off the grid
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  92. Gallagher (2018)
    Considering the Comments: Theorizing Online Audiences as Emergent Processes
    Computers and Composition
  93. Ingraham (2018)
    Energy: Rhetoric’s Vitality
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  94. Silvestro (2018)
    Reaching Backyards and Board Rooms: Strategies for Circulation that ‘Change the…
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  95. Mays (2018)
    “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”: Complexity, Facts, and Creative Nonfiction
    College English
  96. DeLuca (2018)
    Shared Passions, Shared Compositions: Online Fandom Communities and Affinity Gr…
    Computers and Composition
  97. Edwards (2018)
    Circulation Gatekeepers: Unbundling the Platform Politics of YouTube's Content ID
    Computers and Composition
  98. Rule (2018)
    Writing’s Rooms
    College Composition and Communication
  99. Hannah et al. (2018)
    Mapping the Terrain: Examining the Conditions for Alignment Between the Rhetori…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  100. Walkup et al. (2018)
    Health Ecologies in Addiction Treatment: Rhetoric of Health and Medicine and Co…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  101. Laquintano et al. (2017)
    How Automated Writing Systems Affect the Circulation of Political Information Online
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  102. Laquintano et al. (2017)
    How Automated Writing Systems Affect the Circulation of Political Information Online
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  103. Davis (2017)
    Rhetoricity at the End of the World
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  104. Walls (2017)
    The Professional Work of “Unprofessional” Tweets: Microblogging Career Situatio…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  105. Meloncon (2017)
    Patient experience design: expanding usability methodologies for healthcare
    Communication Design Quarterly
  106. Bowen (2017)
    The Limits of Hacking Composition Pedagogy
    Computers and Composition
  107. Stormer et al. (2017)
    Thinking Ecologically About Rhetoric's Ontology: Capacity, Vulnerability, and R…
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  108. Newcomb (2017)
    Dilemmas, Problems, Constraints, and Other Rhetorical Quandaries
    Pedagogy
  109. Ackerman et al. (2016)
    The Skunkwork of Ecological Engagement
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  110. House et al. (2016)
    Special Editors’ Introduction: Sustainable Communities and Environmental Commun…
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  111. Daniel (2016)
    The Event That We Are: Ontology, Rhetorical Agency, and Alain Badiou
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  112. Carter (2016)
    Value Arguments in Science Research Articles: Making the Case for the Importanc…
    Written Communication
  113. Teston (2016)
    Rhetoric, Precarity, and mHealth Technologies
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  114. Edwards (2016)
    Framing Remix Rhetorically: Toward A Typology of Transformative Work
    Computers and Composition
  115. Buchanan (2016)
    A Few Good (Wo)Men: Integrating the US Submarine Force
    Rhetoric Review
  116. Ray (2016)
    Stylizing Genderlect Online for Social Action: A Corpus Analysis of ‘BIC Crista…
    Written Communication
  117. Just et al. (2016)
    Disastrous Dialogue: Plastic Productions of Agency–Meaning Relationships
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  118. Gallagher (2015)
    Five Strategies Internet Writers Use to “Continue the Conversation”
    Written Communication
  119. Gruwell (2015)
    Wikipedia's Politics of Exclusion: Gender, Epistemology, and Feminist Rhetorica…
    Computers and Composition
  120. Colombini (2015)
    Speaking Confidence: Bubble Denial as Market Authoritative Rhetorical Decorum
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  121. Gallagher (2015)
    The Rhetorical Template
    Computers and Composition
  122. Leonard (2015)
    Writing Through Bureaucracy: Migrant Correspondence and Managed Mobility
    Written Communication
  123. Johnson (2014)
    Green Lab:Designing Environmentally Sustainable Computer Classrooms during Econ…
    Computers and Composition
  124. Gunn (2014)
    Canned Laughter
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  125. Bordelon (2014)
    Nineteenth-Century California Teachers’ Institutes: Exploring Connections Among…
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric
  126. Gries (2013)
    Iconographic Tracking: A Digital Research Method for Visual Rhetoric and Circul…
    Computers and Composition
  127. Ortoleva (2013)
    Let's Not Forget Ecological Literacy
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  128. Ortoleva (2013)
    Let's Not Forget Ecological Literacy
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  129. Frost (2013)
    Transcultural Risk Communication on Dauphin Island: An Analysis of Ironically L…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  130. Olson (2012)
    “Raíces Americanas”: Indigenist Art, América, and Arguments for Ecuadorian Nati…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  131. Basgier (2011)
    The Author-Function, The Genre Function, and The Rhetoric of Scholarly Webtexts
    Computers and Composition
  132. Sheridan (2010)
    Fabricating Consent: Three-Dimensional Objects as Rhetorical Compositions
    Computers and Composition
  133. Hartelius et al. (2010)
    Citational Epideixis and a “Thinking of Community”: The Case of the Minuteman Project
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  134. McComiskey (2010)
    Laws, Works, and the End of Days: Rhetorics of Identification, Distinction, and…
    Rhetoric Review
  135. Chaput (2010)
    Rhetorical Circulation in Late Capitalism:
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  136. Ding (2009)
    Rhetorics of Alternative Media in an Emerging Epidemic: SARS, Censorship, and E…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  137. Dyehouse (2009)
    The CyberspaceIncrementum: Technology Development for Communicative Abundance
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  138. Johnson (2009)
    (Environmental) Rhetorics of Tempered Apocalypticism in An Inconvenient Truth
    Rhetoric Review
  139. O'Rourke (2007)
    The Rhetorical Dynamics of Judicial Situations: Joseph Story, Ciceronian Rhetor…
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric

References (19) · 1 in this index

  1. Amin Ash (2002)
    Cities: Reimagining the Urban
  2. Bercu Steve (2003)
    Publishers Weekly
  3. Biesecker Barbara A. (1989)
    Philosophy and Rhetoric
  4. Bitzer Lloyd F. (1968)
    Philosophy and Rhetoric
  5. Deleuze Gilles (1987)
    A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Show all 19 →
  1. 10.1353/rap.2002.0027
     ↗
  2. Gross Joe (2003)
    Austin‐American Statesman
  3. Liggett Helen (2003)
    Urban Encounters
  4. Marback (1998)
    Detroit and the closed fist: Toward a theory of material rhetoric1
    Rhetoric Review
  5. 10.1215/9780822383574
     ↗
  6. Phelps Louise W. (1988)
    Composition as a Human Science
  7. Reynolds Nedra (2004)
    Geographies of Writing: Inhabiting Places and Encountering Difference
  8. Shaviro Steven (2003)
    Connected, or, What it Means to Live in the Network Society
  9. 10.1080/01463379609370010
     ↗
  10. Syverson M. A. (1999)
    The Wealth of Reality: An Ecology of Composition
  11. Tauber Lacey (2002)
    Austin Independent Media Center
  12. Vatz Richard (1973)
    Philosophy and Rhetoric
  13. 10.1215/08992363-14-1-49
     ↗
  14. Williams Raymond (1977)
    Marxism and Literature
CrossRef global citation count: 230 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related articles

  1. Philosophy & Rhetoric Apr 2025
    Aristotle: Art of Rhetoric ↗
    Peter A. O’Connell
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism revision argument multilingual writers grammar and mechanics public rhetoric editorial matter
  2. Philosophy & Rhetoric Apr 2025
    Introduction: On the Desirability of Speaking to Others ↗
    Nirvana Tanoukhi; Nicholas Dunn
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis argument social media race and writing gender and writing disability studies public rhetoric literary studies editorial matter
  3. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Dec 2024
    Communicating the Other Across Cultures: From Othering as Equipment for Living, to Communicating Other/Wise ↗
    Shelby R. Crow
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism empirical research public rhetoric body and rhetoric editorial matter
  4. Philosophy & Rhetoric Sep 2024
    Where’s the Rhetoric? Imagining a Unified Field ↗
    Joshua Hanan
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism composition theory genre theory discourse analysis cultural rhetorics argument qualitative research quantitative research digital rhetoric social media grammar and mechanics gender and writing disability studies public rhetoric affect and writing body and rhetoric editorial matter
  5. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Sep 2024
    Populist Rhetorics Case Studies and a Minimalist Definition ↗
    Arthur E. Walzer
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis argument digital rhetoric social media disability studies public rhetoric editorial matter