Hunsaker and Smith critique previous discussions of the rhetorical situation for not adequately taking into account the perceptions of the rhetor and audience surrounding the issues at stake. The perception and resolution of issues (defined as the actual and potential questions in the situation [144]) are in tension with each other, and in even greater tension as the issue becomes more potent (146). Exigence for Hunsaker and Smith is a matter of privation, “the difference between the present situation and what it potentially could be,” and from this privation arise potential issues (146). These issues are constrained by relevance, rhetorical capability to structure and resolve conflict, and the audience (147).
Hunsaker and Smith discuss the perceptions of speaker and audience, summarizing:
(1) the situational audience, witness to a situation, perceives in that situation rhetorical issues, both motivational and logical in character; (2) issue perceptions of an audience caught up in a situation create the complex event known as the rhetorical situation; (3) a speaker emerges from the situational audience to give voice to the issues, actualizing them in the form of rhetorical discourse; (4) the discourse is directed to an actual audience, and is a function of the speaker’s perception of the situation, the rhetorical audience, the speaker himself or herself, and the issue perceptions of the actual audience; (5) the entire process is placed within the larger framework of a conflict system, measured by the issue in stasis. (154)
“[S]tasis” for Hunsaker and Smith “occurs when conflicting perceptions of the rhetorical situation combine and interact to produce issues that will structure the ensuing conflict and shape its outcome” (152).
Hunsaker, David M., and Craig R. Smith. “The Nature of Issues: A Constructive Approach to Situational Rhetoric.” Western Speech Communication 40.3 (Summer 1976): 144-156.
