Clark provides another useful organizational structure for my purposes. I’m already seeing an intersection with Brooke and Albers. Similar to Spilka, Carliner, Albers, Johnson-Eilola, Selber, etc., Clark is making a claim for an expanded understanding of Technical Communication theories and practices. His specific claim is that technical communicators need to be actively aware of the rhetorical nature of the technologies they use in their work. Echoing Spinuzzi’s claim and abutting much of Brooke’s argument, Clark is drawing off activity theory, rhetorical theory, and genre theory to buttress his position. “Technologies are tools with rhetorical constructions and implications.” With this simple statement, Clark seems to move the tools vs. writing debate to a meta level. What does it mean to be a rhetorically savvy user of technology?
Clark’s rhetoric of technology is based on four extremely useful categories which, like Spilka’s “areas of knowledge”, serve a heuristic function in my mapping effort. 1) Rhetorical Analysis, 2) Technology Transfer, 3) Genre Theory, and 4) Activity Theory.
IA/TC and Rhetorical Analysis: thinking about technological problems from a rhetorical perspective. “We must argue for a rhetorical approach to technological designs and implementations that place users, rather than systems, at the center of our focus…” (93).
IA/TC and Technology Transfer: the study of the process by which technologies are moved into an organization and adopted or rejected. The rhetorical approaches of vendors, customers, and users… the marcom and RFP – the evaluation documentation. I’ve been on all sides of this transfer at different places in my career. I do read a bit of anti-objectivist/positivist sentiment in Clark’s claim here – if not “anti” it’s certainly a less objectivist position than others. “There is no clearly objective fact or physical entity that proceeds uninterrupted from the lab to the market. The entire process is one of interpretation, negation, and adjustment.” This just feel like a position on one side of the Science Wars debates of the 1990s, but I do appreciate Clark’s position and sentiment.
IA/TC and Genre Theory: focuses on the rhetorical construction of the information product. Miller’s definition helps here: Genre is “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations.” Genres are not different formats; they are regularized structures (of concern to the Information Architect).
IA/TC and Activity Theory: the social perspective; designates structural ways for incorporating discussions (of concern to the Information Architect). Groups or individuals are analyzed with a triangular approach that emphasizes the multi-dimensional interconnections among subjects (individual, dyad, group), mediational means or tools, and the object or problem space on which the subjects act.
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