Technical communication meets cultural representation: Scholarly and pedagogical possibilities

The media are a significant source of cultural pedagogy---that is, they help teach us both what to think and how to think about cultural artifacts and practices, including technology. However, studies focusing on media representations of technological artifacts and practices, particularly those that link media study with technical communication pedagogy or scholarship, are few and far between.;In my dissertation, I use a methodology of close reading and critical analysis adapted from scholars of the visual to examine selected print media representations of the Internet that appeared between January 1993 and January 1997, during the Internet's emergence as a prominent force in Western technoculture. Among the themes that enjoyed sustained media coverage during this time period, I identified four that impact technical communication pedagogy and practice.;Convergence of government and media discourses. In 1993, media representations of the Internet unmistakably echoed the optimistic and economically reductive language of concurrent government documents. Although social concerns were peripherally addressed, the apparent objective of both government and media discourses was to establish the Internet's commercial function. Before most people had experienced the Internet for themselves, then, media and government discourses conspired to teach the public which Internet metaphors they should rely upon and which attributes of the Internet would be privileged.;Media representations of novice and expert Internet users. When technical communicators employ audience analysis as a project planning tool, they usually rely on the polarized categories of novice and expert. The media tend to represent novice Internet users as emotional, childlike, and dependent, while experts tend to be portrayed as dominant, intelligent, and economically successful. These cultural attitudes toward novices and experts also appear, more subtly, in technical communication textbooks.;Magic and mystification. Many media representations associate the Internet with magical transformation or mask the complexity of Internet-related processes by employing mystifying language and imagery. Consumers of Internet-related products are thus denied the opportunity to understand the Internet's complexity on their own terms and their agency with respect to technology is reduced.;The Global Village. Marshall McLuhan's metaphor of the global village emphasizes the immediacy and simultaneity of new modes of communication. For him such changes in the speed and ubiquity of communication media necessitate the development of an "inclusive consciousness." The media have appropriated McLuhan's metaphor, but employ it to sell technology as a simplistic solution to the difficulties of communicating across cultures. Instead of promoting inclusiveness, then, the media portray a vision of the global village as a marketplace for U.S. technological products, a Heideggerian standing reserve.;In short, although print media representations promote the revolutionary communicative potential of the emerging Internet, they nonetheless reproduce and even intensify existing technocultural attitudes and practices. I conclude by recommending that a pedagogy of media analysis be adopted in technical communication courses and curricula to encourage teachers, students, and practitioners to adopt a critical perspective toward the attitudes and practices that are associated with their profession and with the technologies about which and with which they communicate. Aided by such a critical perspective, I argue, technical communicators can increase both their own agency with respect to technology and the agency of their audience members.