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Technical documents as rhetorical agency

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Abstract

This research argues that documents can become intermediaries which affect the relationships between disparate groups. Through a critical analysis of materials distributed during an online protest, the author traces the life of a single technical document, simultaneously describing how it was described during deliberation between several groups. Marcusean critical theory and rhetorical criticism framed the analysis. It is suggested that certain documents act as a locus between otherwise unaffiliated groups and that those documents become agents who can mediate deliberation. Further, it is suggested that document analysis can become an important aspect for interpreting group relationships. Future research examining the agency of documents is suggested.

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Notes

  1. One unintended consequence analysis was the emergence of the CSS document’s agency. Although many documents were involved, it was the W3C’s standardized version that originally became the unrelenting agent about which the entire event constellated (World Wide Web Consortium 1998, May 12). Like the eye of a storm, that document motivated those involved. The document was not merely a point of conflict between groups; it also became one of the participants in that conflict. It acted as a fetishized object, clairvoyant, and mediator. The Samurai made an idol of it, the W3C proclaimed its text as a truth, and stakeholders continually referenced it as they negotiated their positions. The document was not only used by the people involved, it also used them. This analysis’s strength was in its ability to propel a specific document into a new light but it avoided the complications of investigating the agency of the document itself. Though this analysis hinted at the emerging agency of the document through its focused analysis on the document, a full investigation of the agency of the CSS document would provide an important addendum to this and related research. Research tools exist to allow such research (Frohmann 2004). Thanks to the work of others in information studies, we have started to understand how the document and related technologies are born as agents—how they express their own unique interests in ways that are not that dissimilar to biological agents (Elichirigoity 2000). Actor-network theorists have argued for the agency of nonhuman objects for some time (Latour 1988, 2005). Other theorists suggest that the biological agent plays only one privileged role of agency among many in social contexts (Haraway 1991). The concerns of social conflict extend beyond the obvious parties involved. Future interpretations focused on the document as an actor will allow a greater understanding of social conflicts involving the document as it is articulated, retrieved, stored, and archived.

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  1. University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, USA

    Nathan Riley Johnson

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Correspondence to Nathan Riley Johnson.

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Johnson, N.R. Technical documents as rhetorical agency. Arch Sci 8, 199–215 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9075-4

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