| This dissertation contributes to ongoing conversations in technical communication, rhetoric of science and technology, interdisciplinary science and technology studies, and media theory. It explores the concept of "the digital," a term we commonly associate with computers and new media, as way of making knowledge that is not necessarily computer-based. The dissertation comprises a theoretical essay that proposes a concept to describe the digital way of knowing, "a digital episteme," and two case studies, (1) LEGO toys in education and (2) protein sequencing software in genetic engineering laboratories (where protein sequences have become a form of new media). A digital episteme is characterized as the production of objects of knowledge which are discrete, non-semantic and manipulable and which entail a technoscientific maker ethic that encourages taking-apart and (re)building as ways to interact with the world. Lego and protein sequencing are considered as sites where the digital functions as a knowledge-making worldview. The LEGO case study is a critical analysis focused on how LEGO educational materials function as translations of particular sets of epistemically digital values; the genetic engineering study focuses on how some of the same epistemological values are manifest in the relationship between the scientist and his/her modeling software and real-world materials. |
