At the heart of information ecologies: invisibility and technical communication

ABSTRACT

The ecological metaphor for technological systems provides a useful supplement to others dealing with the question of human control over technologies. However, it fails to develop adequately its own reliance on communication as the means whereby human values may be embedded in technologies, or to recognize the role of professional communicators in that process.

REFERENCES

• 1: Stephen Doheny-Farina, The wired neighborhood, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996
• 2: Harrison, T. M. and Debs, M. B. (1988). Conceptualizing the Organizational Role of Technical Communicators: A Systems Approach. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 2, 5-21.
• 3: Robert R. Johnson, User-centered technology: a rhetorical theory for computers and other mundane artifacts, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY, 1998
• 4: Lutz, J. A., and Storms, C. G. (Eds.) (1998). The Practice of Technical and Scientific Communication: Writing in Professional Contexts. Stamford, CT: Ablex.
• 5: Bonnie A. Nardi , Vicki L. O'Day, Information ecologies: using technology with heart, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999
• 6: Norman, D. a. (1988). The Design of Everyday Things. NY: Doubleday.
• 7: Winner, L. (1977). Autonomous Technology: Technics Out-ofiControl as a Theme in Political Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY

Keywords:
technical communication, technological determinism, user-centered design