And here's a Wordle visual of my paper.
And here's a working mindmap of the larger topic of children and TC:
12.03.2009
Theory Paper for 5371
Here's a link to the Google doc of my theory paper, and the abstract.
And here's a Wordle visual of my paper.
And here's a working mindmap of the larger topic of children and TC:
And here's a Wordle visual of my paper.
And here's a working mindmap of the larger topic of children and TC:
11.17.2009
Literature Review for 5371: Final Version
The literature review for my project "Technical Communication and
Youth Civic Engagement in a Digital World" can be viewed in Google Docs viewer here.
Youth Civic Engagement in a Digital World" can be viewed in Google Docs viewer here.
11.09.2009
Literature Review for 5371: An Outline
The topic I have selected for my literature review is technical communication and children. I realize not much has been published in the past 5 years on this, and so I am investigating the ways in which the work of technical communicators intersects childhood research.
A rough outline:
Intro
Definition of technical communication
Definition of childhood
Specific areas of interest
Conclusion
Bibliography
A rough outline:
Intro
Definition of technical communication
Definition of childhood
Specific areas of interest
Conclusion
Bibliography
11.02.2009
Philosophy of Technology: Bob Johnson
User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts (1998)
Reading Response: Preface-chapter 2:
Preface: Johnson summarizes previous philosophers approaches to technology, including that of Winner (based on limits), Mitcham (taxonomy bridging applied and intellectual), Feenberg (critical theory), and Wacjman (feminisim). Johnson is the first person we’ve read who explicitly addresses TC in the discussion of philosophy and technology. He asks, “where are the technical communicators in this important field of scholarship?” (xiii). He defines the audience for the book as scholarly and workplace technical communicators, researchers and teachers of rhetoric and composition, and scholars of technology studies.
Part I of the book is titled “Situating Technology,” and it consists of two chapters that deal with the “mundane” (or everyday) uses of technology and a user-centered rhetorical model for technology. Johnson suggests that users of technology live in a world of the mundane—technology has become so much a part of our lives, that it is hidden from view, blending into the backdrop of our everyday lives. He believes there has been a value-shift from everyday knowledge, or know-how, to knowledge in the machine or the system. He cites Michel de Certeau (ironically I just downloaded his book onto my Kindle), who says know-how has become folklore, and as such, the appreciation of know-how and use has been lost and is part of our collective unconscious. Johnson suggests that rhetoric can be used to resurrect this lost knowledge and make it visible.
Johnson points out that within our knowledge of the mundane, we often act and “do” as specialists, but we are not allowed such knowledge because we received this knowledge in the practice of our everyday lives, not as part of a formal education. He suggests this is a reversal of “theory then practice” to “practice then theory,” and asks “what would it mean to our educational insitututions … if we made the knowledge of know-how visible within the confines of the academy?” I would argue that the TCR program does exactly this. We study both theory and practice, we apply theory to practice and vice versa. Seems to me to be a question of the chicken or the egg…. Using Aristotle as a historical guide, Johnson suggests that we, as users of technology, are empowered by our role as users and that we will need to theorize the mundane—aka revalue and refigure technological development from a user’s perspective.
In chapter 2, Johnson explains how modern technology has been mostly centered on techne—the technological system or artifact itself, with inventors or developers as those who know best about use. He offers a new model of technological development based on rhetoric with users as the “end,” which he calls a “user-centered rhetorical complex of technology.” He argues for users as an integral, participatory force in the process, and using Beniger and Norman’s user-centered models and Richards and Kinneavy’s rhetorical triangles as building blocks, he places users at the center of his new, more complex, iterative model (p. 39). While he acknowledges the shortcomings of any theoretical construct or metaphor, his “complex” can serve a heuristic for analyzing technological artifacts and processes, and a mode for exploring people--inventors, designers, users, and luddites—who make, design, use, or destroy technologies.
Reading Response: Preface-chapter 2:
Preface: Johnson summarizes previous philosophers approaches to technology, including that of Winner (based on limits), Mitcham (taxonomy bridging applied and intellectual), Feenberg (critical theory), and Wacjman (feminisim). Johnson is the first person we’ve read who explicitly addresses TC in the discussion of philosophy and technology. He asks, “where are the technical communicators in this important field of scholarship?” (xiii). He defines the audience for the book as scholarly and workplace technical communicators, researchers and teachers of rhetoric and composition, and scholars of technology studies.
Part I of the book is titled “Situating Technology,” and it consists of two chapters that deal with the “mundane” (or everyday) uses of technology and a user-centered rhetorical model for technology. Johnson suggests that users of technology live in a world of the mundane—technology has become so much a part of our lives, that it is hidden from view, blending into the backdrop of our everyday lives. He believes there has been a value-shift from everyday knowledge, or know-how, to knowledge in the machine or the system. He cites Michel de Certeau (ironically I just downloaded his book onto my Kindle), who says know-how has become folklore, and as such, the appreciation of know-how and use has been lost and is part of our collective unconscious. Johnson suggests that rhetoric can be used to resurrect this lost knowledge and make it visible.
Johnson points out that within our knowledge of the mundane, we often act and “do” as specialists, but we are not allowed such knowledge because we received this knowledge in the practice of our everyday lives, not as part of a formal education. He suggests this is a reversal of “theory then practice” to “practice then theory,” and asks “what would it mean to our educational insitututions … if we made the knowledge of know-how visible within the confines of the academy?” I would argue that the TCR program does exactly this. We study both theory and practice, we apply theory to practice and vice versa. Seems to me to be a question of the chicken or the egg…. Using Aristotle as a historical guide, Johnson suggests that we, as users of technology, are empowered by our role as users and that we will need to theorize the mundane—aka revalue and refigure technological development from a user’s perspective.
In chapter 2, Johnson explains how modern technology has been mostly centered on techne—the technological system or artifact itself, with inventors or developers as those who know best about use. He offers a new model of technological development based on rhetoric with users as the “end,” which he calls a “user-centered rhetorical complex of technology.” He argues for users as an integral, participatory force in the process, and using Beniger and Norman’s user-centered models and Richards and Kinneavy’s rhetorical triangles as building blocks, he places users at the center of his new, more complex, iterative model (p. 39). While he acknowledges the shortcomings of any theoretical construct or metaphor, his “complex” can serve a heuristic for analyzing technological artifacts and processes, and a mode for exploring people--inventors, designers, users, and luddites—who make, design, use, or destroy technologies.
10.18.2009
Philosophy of Technology: Chapter 55 (Feenberg)
"Democratic Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Freedom" (1992)
Feenberg gracefully discusses and critiques many of the authors we're read this semester, along with other major technology & society thinkers (Marx, Weber, Heidegger, Ellul, McLuhan, Pinch & Binker, Marcuse, Braverman & Noble, Foucault), as well as some of the -isms we have discussed (socialism, determinism, Luddism, constructivism, rationalism, hacktivism).
His main point is to ask why democracy hasn't, after years of struggle, been extended to a technical public sphere? Does technology exclude democracy, or has technology been used to suppress democracy?
He believes this hasn't happened for two reasons: 1) modern technology is incompatible with workplace democracy, and 2) technology is not responsible for the concentration of industrial power. He believes that given a different social context, that it is very likely that modern technology could be operated democratically.
He rejects technological determinism and and neutrality. He argues that modern forms of hegemony are based on the technical mediation of social activities, and he calls for radical technical and political changes for true democratization of our society.
Feenberg makes a point to define hegemony as he will use the term: "a form of domination so deeply rooted in social life that it seems natural to those it dominates" (657). He also uses many useful examples to elucidate his points, such as:
I found many useful passages for my paper/research on mobile devices. Some notes:
"A fuller picture is conveyed ... by studying the social role of the technical object and the lifestyles it makes possible.... It makes technology's contextual causes and consequences visible rather than obscuring them behind an impoverished functionalism" (656)
"differences in the way social groups interpret and use technical objects are not merely extrinsic but make a difference in the nature of the objects themselves. What the object is for the groups that ultimately decide its fate determines what it becomes as it is redesigned and improved over time. If this is true, then we can only understand technological development by studying the sociopolitical situation of various groups involved with it" (657)
I look forward to reading his books.
Feenberg gracefully discusses and critiques many of the authors we're read this semester, along with other major technology & society thinkers (Marx, Weber, Heidegger, Ellul, McLuhan, Pinch & Binker, Marcuse, Braverman & Noble, Foucault), as well as some of the -isms we have discussed (socialism, determinism, Luddism, constructivism, rationalism, hacktivism).
His main point is to ask why democracy hasn't, after years of struggle, been extended to a technical public sphere? Does technology exclude democracy, or has technology been used to suppress democracy?
He believes this hasn't happened for two reasons: 1) modern technology is incompatible with workplace democracy, and 2) technology is not responsible for the concentration of industrial power. He believes that given a different social context, that it is very likely that modern technology could be operated democratically.
He rejects technological determinism and and neutrality. He argues that modern forms of hegemony are based on the technical mediation of social activities, and he calls for radical technical and political changes for true democratization of our society.
Feenberg makes a point to define hegemony as he will use the term: "a form of domination so deeply rooted in social life that it seems natural to those it dominates" (657). He also uses many useful examples to elucidate his points, such as:
- Pinch & Bijker's bicycle example to illustrate constructtivism,
- the Factory Bill of 1844 and indeterminism,
- the Teletel and Minitel to show the complexity of the relationship between the technical function and meaning/unintended uses of the computer,
- Braverman & Nobleman's example of the assembly line/child labor case and production technologies as examples of technological rationality,
- the environmental movement and social relativity of efficiency,
- bursting steamboat boilers to explain the "technical code"/standards that mediate how technology adapts to social change
- hackers (such as the AIDs patient movement that destabilized and exposed the medical system) as innovative public reactions to subvert the technical practices, procedures, and designs structuring social life
I found many useful passages for my paper/research on mobile devices. Some notes:
"A fuller picture is conveyed ... by studying the social role of the technical object and the lifestyles it makes possible.... It makes technology's contextual causes and consequences visible rather than obscuring them behind an impoverished functionalism" (656)
"differences in the way social groups interpret and use technical objects are not merely extrinsic but make a difference in the nature of the objects themselves. What the object is for the groups that ultimately decide its fate determines what it becomes as it is redesigned and improved over time. If this is true, then we can only understand technological development by studying the sociopolitical situation of various groups involved with it" (657)
I look forward to reading his books.
