Developing the Political Perspective on Technological Change Through Rhetorical Analysis    

Rhetorical analysis provides a means through which a political perspective on technological change can be developed at a micro-discursive level. Through the analysis of managers' arguments and counterarguments, this article identifies three rhetorical strategies that negotiate the relationship between the technical and the social: attributing the effects of technology; claiming convergent and divergent interests; and constructing identities for self, groups, and the technology. It argues that a rhetorical approach maintains space for agency on the behalf of employees (through the witcraft of argument) and analytical skepticism concerning the reality of technology properties and effects (through counterargument). In addition, it proposes the concept of the argumentative context as a means of bridging the gap between individual and organizational rhetoric.

Symon, Gillian. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Technology>Rhetoric

New Literacies and Old: A Dialogue  

Despite what some consider evidence to the contrary, the U.S.A. remains largely a nation of readers and writers.

Moulthrop, Stuart and Nancy Kaplan. Kairos (2004). Articles>Rhetoric>Technology

So Much, So Far, So What? Progress and Prediction in Technorhetoric  

In any popular cultural innovation one cares to name, there is an explicit or implicit claim about the way that the innovation will 'change' or 'transform' life, its quality, or its effect.

Whipple, Bob, Jr. and Robert S. Dornsife, Jr. Kairos (2004). Articles>Rhetoric>Technology

Technologizing Change: Rhetoric of Software Implementation at a University Campus  

This paper reports on a study of new software implementation at a university. Seven emails distributed by a central Office of Information Technology were examined for semantic (content) meaning and syntactic (grammatical) function. Semantic findings show a high degree of topical shift. Syntactic findings show a high number of clauses and complements. The analysis also shows how determiners were used to construct 'new' information as 'given' (presupposition). The paper argues that discursive stability was created by technologizing the rhetoric of implementation. The study concludes by suggesting that a heavy reliance on dependent clauses, along with other features, may be indicative of technologized discourse.

Faber, Brenton D. ACM SIGDOC (2003). Articles>Technology>Software>Rhetoric

Toward a Feminist Rhetoric of Technology    

This article extends current thinking about the rhetoric of technology by making a preliminary inquiry into what a feminist rhetoric of technology might look like. On the basis of feminist critiques of technology in various disciplines, the author suggests three ways in which feminist approaches to building a rhetoric of technology might differ from current nonfeminist approaches to this task. First, feminist scholars should adopt a more expansive definition of technology than that which informs current rhetoric of technology research. Second, feminist scholars should ask different research questions than those being asked by current rhetoric-of-technology researchers. Third, feminist scholars should move beyond the design and development phases of technology, which most of the current research on the rhetoric of technology emphasizes.

Koerber, Amy. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Rhetoric>Technology>Gender

Writing, Literacy and Technology: Toward a Cyborg Writing  

Like Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Lyotard, and others, Haraway calls for a conception of writing (“cyborg writing,” in her terms) that resists authoritative, phallogocentric writing practices, that foregrounds the writer’s own situatedness in history and in his or her writing practice, and that makes visible the very “apparatus of the production of authority” that all writers tend to submerge in their discourse. This is not to say that writers must “eschew” authority, but that in a truly ethical and postmodern stance they must reveal how authority is implicated in discourse. And because writing is inseparable both from its own embodied situatedness and from systems of liberation and domination, “literacy” should be a central concern of us all.

Olson, Gary A. JAC (1996). Articles>Rhetoric>Technology

Tech-Rhetters Go Back to Grad School

A while ago, I queried the techrhet mailing list for suggestions. I asked: Which five technical/technological skills (beyond the basics of e-mailing and word processing) would you make absolutely sure you had under control at the start or the end of the PhD process? Here are the responses.

Whipple, Bob, Jr. Bedford-St. Martin's (2009). Articles>Education>Technology>Rhetoric

A Manifesto for Slow Communication

We need context in order to live, and if the environment of electronic communication has stopped providing it, we shouldn't search online for a solution but turn back to the real world and slow down. To do this, we need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from effi­ciency, pause and step back enough to realize that efficiency may be good for business and governments but does not always lead to mindfulness and sustainable, rewarding relationships.

Freeman, John. Wall Street Journal, The (2009). Articles>Communication>Technology>Rhetoric