Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Aaron A. Toscano, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Charlotte Debate
  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS 2024 Presentation
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SAMLA 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • SEACS 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2025 Presentation
    • SEWSA 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 6th: Words and Word Classes
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • November 15th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • November 1st: Stylistic Variations
    • November 29th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Rhetoric of Fear (prose example)
    • November 8th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 18th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 4th: Form and Function
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology”
    • April 23rd: Presentation Discussion
    • April 2nd: Artificial Intelligence Discussion, machine (super)learning
    • April 4th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • February 13th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 15th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 1st: Technology and Postmodernism
    • February 20th: Technology and Gender
    • February 22nd: Technology, Expediency, Racism
    • February 27th: Writing Workshop, etc.
    • February 6th: The Religion of Technology (Part 1 of 3)
    • February 8th: Religion of Technology (Part 2 of 3)
    • January 11th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 16th: Isaac Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance”
    • January 18th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 23rd: Technology and Democracy
    • January 25th: The Politics of Technology
    • January 30th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • Major Assignments for Rhetoric of Technology
    • March 12th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 3
    • March 14th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 3
    • March 19th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 3 of 3
    • March 21st: Writing and Reflecting: Research and Synthesizing
    • March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk
    • March 28th: Artificial Intelligence Book Reviews
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 11th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 18th: Feminisms, Rhetorics, Herstories
    • April 25th:  Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • April 4th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • February 15th: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • February 29th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • February 8th: Isocrates
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • March 14th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)
    • March 28th: Knoblauch’s Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology
    • August 19: Introduction to the Course
    • August 21: More Introduction
    • August 26th: Consider Media-ted Arguments
    • August 28th: Media & American Culture
    • November 13th: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 3
    • November 18th: Feminism’s Non-Monolithic Nature
    • November 20th: Compulsory Heterosexuality
    • November 25th: Presentation Discussion
    • November 4: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 1
    • November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2
    • October 16th: No Class Meeting
    • October 21: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 1
    • October 23: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 2
    • October 28: The Internet, Part 3
    • October 2nd: Hauntology
    • October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • October 7:  Myth in American Culture
    • September 11: Critical Theory
    • September 16th: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • September 18th: Postmodernism, Part 1
    • September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2
    • September 25th: Postmodernism, Part 3
    • September 30th: Capitalist Realism
    • September 4th: The Medium is the Message!
    • September 9: The Public Sphere
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • April 10th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts III and IV)
    • April 15th: The Dispossessed (Part I)
    • April 17th: The Dispossessed (Part II)
    • April 1st: Interstellar (2014)
    • April 22nd: In/Human Beauty
    • April 24: Witch Hunt Politics (Part I)
    • April 29th: Witch Hunt Politics (Part II)
    • April 3rd: Catch Up and Start Octavia Butler
    • April 8th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts I and II)
    • February 11: William Gibson, Part II
    • February 18: Use Your Illusion I
    • February 20: Use Your Illusion II
    • February 25th: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • February 4th: Writing Discussion: Ideas & Arguments
    • February 6th: William Gibson, Part I
    • January 14th: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • January 16th: More Introduction
    • January 21st: Robots and Zombies
    • January 23rd: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • January 28th: American Studies Introduction
    • January 30th: World’s Beyond
    • March 11th: All Systems Red
    • March 13th: Zone One (Part 1)
      • Zone One “Friday”
    • March 18th: Zone One, “Saturday”
    • March 20th: Zone One, “Sunday”
    • March 25th: Synthesizing Sources; Writing Gooder
      • Writing Discussion–Outlines
    • March 27th: Inception (2010)
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • How to Make an Argument with Sources
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Judith Butler, an Introduction to Gender/Sexuality Studies
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology” » April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)

April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)

Plan for the Day

  • Overview of the rest of the semester
  • Talk more about Social Construction of Technology revisions
  • Discuss Technology Project Stuff
  • Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • History of Technology
    • Differences between the linear, “evolution” model and social construction

Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future

You probably can tell that I’m not in agreement with the claims Wheeler makes about the linearity of technological development and his privileging whig history. Of course, a class on the rhetoric of technology has to explore the common assumptions of technological development to understand how meaning is conveyed and how assumptions are made. I’ll do my best to read with Wheeler today.

For your Final Exam, you’ll need to pay close attention to a question’s context. Consider the following questions:

Example Question #1: Our class discussion regarding the social construction of technology privileges understanding technological advancement as following ______________________________.
a) totally random patterns of development throughout history
b) deliberate, incremental steps of evolution in order to get to the advancements we have today
c) demands, often hegemonic ones, of a culture to produce technologies that fit or can be made to fit prevailing ideologies
d) all of the above
e) none of the above

Example Questions #2: According to Tom Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google, technological advancement follows ______________________________.
a) totally random patterns of development throughout history
b) deliberate, incremental steps of evolution in order to get to the advancements we have today p. 16
c) demands, often hegemonic ones, of a culture to produce technologies that fit or can be made to fit prevailing ideologies
d) all of the above
e) none of the above

Wheeler’s “Preface“

  • p. xiii: 1/6th of the national economy, $27.36T (US Bureau of Economic Analysis)–notice the URL
    • Net neutrality
  • p. xiv: “Ultimately, new rules and practices embrace the reality of the future over the practices of the past— but getting there isn’t easy.”
    • “Darwinian connection between the earlier technology and today’s technology.”
  • p. xv: “Combining ubiquitous computing and Big Data has created artificial intelligence.”
    • “I want to convince you that the most important impact of network revolutions is not the network technology but how society reacts to that technology— and how that is something we control.”

Compare that last quotation with Langdon Winner’s definition of technological determinism from : “the idea that technological innovation is the basic cause of changes in society and that human beings have little choice other than to sit back and watch this ineluctable process unfold” (9-10).

  • ineluctable might not be synonymous with “natural,” but I have a feeling Wheeler considers them close enough.

Wheeler’s “Prologue”

  • pp. 1-2: Begins with explaining some new business models and smart devices…same as artificial intelligence? If you asked, “which definition?” you’ll probably do VERY well on the Final Exam.
  • p. 2: “…history’s third great network revolution.”
    • Centers his argument around network changes leading to economic and social changes (economics is a social science).
  • p. 3: “…Darwinian evolution. Technologically, each of the earlier network revolutions was a building block to the networked technologies of today.”
    • There is a true to this statement.
  • pp. 4-5: Always been warnings about new technology
    • Consider the rhetorical nature of warnings.
  • p. 5: Moore’s law from 1965. It’s slowing, but it’s heading towards the singularity, right?
  • p. 6: “We can no longer escape. Once, being out of the office or away from home was an opportunity to bail out. Now you can be away but never apart.”
  • Think of this from a scifi perspective.
  • p. 7: Job loss and digital tracks.

Wheeler’s Ch. 1 “Connections Have Consequences”

  • p. 11: Securing networks–“The U.S. government commissioned a California think tank, the RAND Corporation…”
  • p.12: “If one computer was knocked out, the packets would work their way around the problem by being re- sent to other nodes.”
    • You might not be aware that the US government had plans in place for World War IV:
      The Reagan-approved Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN) was in development (in the 1980s) in order to have “a military infrastructure that can survive a protracted nuclear war” (Hiatt H3).
  • p. 13: From Paul Baran–“We are a network- centric species; the networks that connect us have always defined us. The most powerful external force in the human experience is the manner in which we link ourselves together.”
  • p. 14: “As the railroad supplanted traditional pathways, the telegraph rode alongside[, which]….also introduced instantaneous communications into other aspects of life and business.”
    • “Whereas the railroad compressed distance, the telegraph condensed time. From the beginning of history, the fact that information moved physically meant that it moved slowly, limited to the same speed as human travel.”
  • p. 15: “Electronic messages coordinated industrial production, created a new managerial class, and enabled the rise of powerful market- controlling corporations.”
  • p. 16: The Charles Darwin argument–“The evolution of network technology mimics the step- by- step natural evolution of living things.”
  • p. 16: Debunking the Lone Inventor Myth: “While inventions are often described in terms of one person’s inspiration, in reality they are typically a new assembly of accrued knowledge in a heretofore unrecognized manner for a previously unappreciated purpose.”
    • “…Marconi continued from the point where others had stopped. Such an account contributed to the ‘lone inventor myth’ because it never named other inventors from whom Marconi compiled various components to use in his wireless apparatus” (Toscano 96).
  • p. 17: “The current network revolution is being driven by the ultimate expansion of network dispersal to further move activity away from central points to become fully distributed, ultimately right down to the individual.”
  • Would a discussion of individualism make sense here?
  • Linear, accretive process of technological advancement according to Wheeler:
    “First, a new technology breaks the ongoing incremental, linear evolution of the old technology by reformulating components that have been around for some time. Then the new nonlinear assembly is seized on by others to produce nonobvious results.
    • Let’s revisit relevant social groups,
      • “Another reason why users need to be acclimated to technology is because they are important ‘actors’ or ‘‘relevant social groups’’ that are part of the social construction of technology (Bijker 1995, p. 48). Technology not adhering to cultural values or, at least, not being made to fit cultural values will not become realized.” (Toscano 27)
      • “Being labeled as a progressive technology suggests the wireless ‘spoke’ to the cultural desire to advance through machines. Relevant social groups promoted the wireless as an evolutionary feat, a marker of industrial progress, just as Edison’s electrical works projects were seen in places like San Francisco and Louisville (Bazerman 1999, p. 219)” (Toscano 132).
  • p. 18: “Because new networks dispatch old traditions, they trigger opposition from those who have grown comfortable with the old patterns.”
  • p. 19: “For the first time in history, the new network puts its user in control.”
    • You made me promises, promises
      Knowing I’d believe
      Promises, promises
      You knew you’d never keep (“Promises, Promises” by Naked Eyes)
  • p. 21: “The acceleration of network speeds maps to the pace of technological change and the acceleration of economic and social change.”
  • p. 22: “Making information instantaneously available every where at a speed 100 times faster than delivery by horse further hastened the pace of life and the rate of change.”
  • p. 23: “History has been clear in the expectations it sets for our future. The innovations created by new networks topple old institutions and accelerate the pace of life. The demands of the new and the absence of traditional moorings generate frustration and bewilderment.”
    • Let’s play a game…spot two “truths” in the above passage.
  • p. 24: “…the greatest danger is not the turmoil itself but the attempt to cling to the comfortable ideas and institutions that remain from the last network revolution.”
    • Very futurist…

William Speed Weed’s “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney”

William Speed Weed “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney” used to be a staple in the courses I taught, but I stopped assigning it. I ought to rethink that. In the article, he discusses advertising claims. The claim of “natural” is quite funny, especially when he discusses evolution.

Next Class

We don’t have class on Thursday (4/11, but you know the 4-1-1!) or next Tuesday (4/16). You have Weekly Discussion Post #12 due this Friday (4/12) at 11:00am, and you’ll have Weekly Discussion Post #13 due next Friday (4/19) at 11:00am. Then, you only have one more left!


Works Cited

Hiatt, Fred. “U.S. Military Building Network to Fight World War III—and IV.” The Toronto Star. 3 August 1986, p. H3. Nexis Uni, https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3WJ6-1NF0-00RK-C355-00000-00&context=1516831.

Toscano, Aaron A. Marconi’s Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology. Springer, 2012.

Weed, William Speed. “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney.” Popular Science, 5 May 2004. https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-05/1o6-science-claims-and-truckful-baloney/

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