A Dream of Access: Not the Tech Comm History I Was Expecting
When I imagined the history of computer development I always pictured a multitude of governmental -war games-loving men in a white walled, dust free, fluorescent lighted, room conspiring to make the world's most "powerful" and dominating machine. I suppose that image was implanted from several films and growing up in a time that featured "powerful" and often mischievous computers.
Unlike my made up history I was pleasantly surprised to find that most computer developers hoped to use the technology for good. Both Wells and Licklider/Taylor wrote directly about the potential benefits to all humankind that computers or access to a central "bank" of information/knowledge could have. When detailing the possibilities created by open access to "knowledge" Wells states, "And its creation is a way to world peace that can be followed without any very grave risk of collision with the warring political forces and the vested institutional interests of today. Quietly and sanely this new encyclopedia, will not so much overcome these archaic discords, as deprive them, steadily but imperceptibly of their present reality" (88). Although I believe this statement to be naive the emphasis on open access and world peace is interesting. It also seems to be in stark contrast to the road tech comm eventually went down (the objective-unemotional-positivist approach).
In addition to Wells, Licklider's text also seems to focus on the positive possibilites afforded by technology. In other words, the attention was definitely on the benefits of new technology that could allow for direct interfacing,"modeling," and collaboration. The possibilty for collaboration is what appeared to be the most effective development in technology. Again ,I find this in contrast to the critiques we read for last weeks class. Although I understand that tech comm's desire for "objectivity" is primarily due to its attachement to science and the need to merely "transmit the facts," however, I imagined a somewhat maniacle figure behind the development of the inital technology. Licklider and Taylor's essay (perhaps idealistic) did make an interesting case for the important role of messaging software and the role of modeling. The authors state, "And through them, all the members of the supercommunity can communicate-with other people, with programs, with data, or with selected combinations of those resources. The message processors, being all alike, introduce an element of uniformity into an otherwise grossly nonuniform situation, for they facilitate both hardware and software compatibility among diverse and poorly compatible computers" (32). The opportunity to connect "communities" offered by technology actually points to a more harmonious existence than that without computers.
What was most striking about these two articles was the sense of "hope" offered by technological advances. I wonder if many of still feel this way or if we are more perplexed and feel more akin to Sullivan (from last week).
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Notes for History, Rhetroic and Humanism
CCR 760
Rutter, Russel. "History, Rhetroic and Humanism." Central Works in Technical Communication.
Rutter calls for more inclusion of imagination and liberal arts education in technical writing. He argues that technical writing has gotten too pragmatic and generally ignores the rhetorical nature of any communication. He opens with a powerful example from the the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
Quotable quotes:
It is intellectually simple, though astronomically dull, to regard writing merely as a matter of polish, but worse yet, it leads to a trap. Colleges and universities turn out graduates who discover by experience that recipes for writing that their college instructors once adopted in response to sudden demands for technical writing courses do not satisfy the needs of science and industry as they are now constituted. (28)
Technical communicators, because they depend on both "knowledge and practice," because they rely on learning as a guide to experience, and because they need to bring elogquence, empathy, and imagination to the world of work are--should be expected to be--rhetoricians. (29)
General comments:
As this is new terriory for me it's difficult to consider this essay critically. So far I buy it. I think all communication typically needs to be considered rhetorically. I also like how he points to the importance of theorry. He approaches theory in terms of its importance to the "applied" science in order to strengthen the argument for more attention to the liberal arts in science and technology education. I also like to see this in writing classes. In other words students need not only immulate models of how to write but also be introduced to theory of communication practices so that students can be the problem solvers. I see this analogous with the saying that goes something like "it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish...."
Rutter, Russel. "History, Rhetroic and Humanism." Central Works in Technical Communication.
Rutter calls for more inclusion of imagination and liberal arts education in technical writing. He argues that technical writing has gotten too pragmatic and generally ignores the rhetorical nature of any communication. He opens with a powerful example from the the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
Quotable quotes:
It is intellectually simple, though astronomically dull, to regard writing merely as a matter of polish, but worse yet, it leads to a trap. Colleges and universities turn out graduates who discover by experience that recipes for writing that their college instructors once adopted in response to sudden demands for technical writing courses do not satisfy the needs of science and industry as they are now constituted. (28)
Technical communicators, because they depend on both "knowledge and practice," because they rely on learning as a guide to experience, and because they need to bring elogquence, empathy, and imagination to the world of work are--should be expected to be--rhetoricians. (29)
General comments:
As this is new terriory for me it's difficult to consider this essay critically. So far I buy it. I think all communication typically needs to be considered rhetorically. I also like how he points to the importance of theorry. He approaches theory in terms of its importance to the "applied" science in order to strengthen the argument for more attention to the liberal arts in science and technology education. I also like to see this in writing classes. In other words students need not only immulate models of how to write but also be introduced to theory of communication practices so that students can be the problem solvers. I see this analogous with the saying that goes something like "it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish...."
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