What comes to mind when you think of racist medical experimentation in the United States? For most people, it’s the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis study, during which doctors allowed Black men to die from syphilis in order to study “the natural progression of the disease,” even though effective treatment existed. In her book Medical Apartheid, medical journalist Harriet Washington argues that this is just one example in a long history of racism against Black people in medical research, and that we need to face this history if we are to build trust with Black communities.
We discuss key points from her book, starting in the age of chattel slavery in the United States up through Americans’ collaboration with South African apartheid doctors aiming to develop racially-targeted biological warfare.
This topic has implications for health communicators who are writing and designing for marginalized audiences. More broadly, awareness of this history is necessary to make sense of current health disparities by race, most recently made evident with COVID-19.
Carlson, E. B., & Gouge, C. (2021). Rural Health and Contextualizing Data. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 35(1), 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651920958502
Doan, S. (2021). Misrepresenting COVID-19: Lying With Charts During the Second Golden Age of Data Design. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 35(1), 73–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651920958392
Fantastic Fungi: A film by Louie Schwartzberg on Mycelial Connection. (2019). Fantastic Fungi. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://fantasticfungi.com/
Washington, H. A. (2006). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Doubleday.
Transcript
B
We are TC talk.
A
What will people say when they hear that I’m a tech comm freak?
Old prejudices are often coded into new technologies, even those technologies that claim to enhance diversity and fairness. We break down the metaphors of the New Jim Code (from Ruha Benjamin) and the Digital Poorhouse (from Virginia Eubanks) to show how modern technological “fixes” discriminate against Black people and poor people, respectively. Even the best-intentioned algorithms can have disastrous consequences (not unlike Abi’s cooking). We suggest some ways that designers and communicators can better account for race and poverty in their designs. In addition, we reveal the fourth rhetorical appeal from Aristotle’s lost works.
Sources and further reading
Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press.
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. John Wiley & Sons.
Dickens, C. (1843). A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Chapman & Hall.
Downey, K. (2009). The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Eubanks, V. (2019). Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. Picador.
TASAT – There’s a Story About That. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2022, from http://tasat.ucsd.edu/
Townshend, P. (1971, August 14). Won’t Get Fooled Again—Original Album Version [recorded by The Who]. Decca Records.
Wachter-Boettcher, S. (2017). Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech. W. W. Norton & Company.
Zachry, M., & Spyridakis, J. H. (2016). Human-centered design and the field of technical communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 46(4), 392–401.
Transcript
B
We are super ignorant about mushrooms.
A
Welcome to TC Talk, where the topic is professional, but the tone isn’t.
B
Oh heavens, no. So what are we talking about today?
One troglodyte to another, Abi takes Benton through the (semi-) scandalous history of technical communication and looks to its exciting future of inclusivity. We address how the field has answered the big questions of What are we? and Why are we here? We also answer less-significant but no-less-compelling questions like, What is the first rule of foraging? How do you pronounce the word “whaling”? Why does Benton need a new wedding ring?
Sources and further reading
Basquin, E. A. (1981). The First Technical Writer in English: Geoffrey Chaucer. Technical Communication, 28(3), 22–24.
Connors, R. (1982). The rise of technical writing instruction in America. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 12(4).
Dobrin, D. N. (1983). What’s technical about technical writing? In New essays in technical and scientific communication (pp. 227–250). Routledge.
Durack, K. T. (1997). Gender, technology, and the history of technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 6(3), 249–260. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq0603_2
Johnson-Eilola, J., & Selber, S. A. (Eds.). (2004). Central Works in Technical Communication. Oxford University Press.
Jones, N. N., Moore, K. R., & Walton, R. (2016). Disrupting the past to disrupt the future: An antenarrative of technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 25(4), 211–229.
Kilgore, D. (1981). Moby-Dick: A Whale of a Handbook for Technical Writing Teachers. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication.
Kimball, M. A. (2017). The golden age of technical communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 47(3), 330–358.
Rutter, R. (1991). History, Rhetoric, and Humanism: Toward a More Comprehensive Definition of Technical Communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 21(2), 133–153. https://doi.org/10.2190/7BBK-BJYK-AQGB-28GP
Slack, J., Miller, D., & Doak, J. (1993). The Technical Communicator as Author: Meaning, Power, Authority. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 7(1), 12–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/105065199300700100
Thayer, S. (2006). The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. Forager’s Harvest.
Abi’s communication expertise and Benton’s science expertise collide as they discuss “Don’t Look Up,” a comedy/ disaster film by Netflix in which two astronomers try to get the world to care about a planet-killing comet. Abi touches on the film’s relevance to communicating in a crisis, while Benton explains how the filmmakers got the science right. In addition, Benton describes what NASA is currently doing to prep for a similar scenario, and Abi outlines her dream space-themed writing course.
Dombrowski, P. M. (1992). Challenger and the social contingency of meaning: Two lessons for the technical communication classroom. Technical Communication Quarterly, 1(3), 73–86.
Post Carbon Institute. (Apr. 1, 2020). Coronavirus and the Three Bears: The Right-Sized Crisis for a Transition to Sustainability? Crazy Town. [Podcast]. https://www.postcarbon.org/crazytown/episode-18/
Weber, R. (2016). Stasis in Space! Viewing Definitional Conflicts Surrounding the James Webb Space Telescope Funding Debate. Technical Communication Quarterly, 25(2), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2016.1149619
What skills do we, and students, need to deal with fake news and other low-quality information online? (And how have Benton & Abi applied these skills to their personal political disagreements?) And what is missing from the ways instructors have typically taught information literacy? We discuss resources that can be used in the classroom, such as True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News by Cindy Otis. We also discuss our favorite historical examples of fake news.
Heindler, F. M., Alajmi, F., Huerlimann, R., Zeng, C., Newman, S. J., Vamvounis, G., & van Herwerden, L. (2017). Toxic effects of polyethylene terephthalate microparticles and Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate on the calanoid copepod, Parvocalanus crassirostris. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 141, 298–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2017.03.029
Otis, C. L. (2020). True Or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News. Feiwel & Friends.
Takayoshi, P., Tomlinson, E., & Castillo, J. (2012). The construction of research problems and methods. In K. Powell & P. Takayoshi (Eds.), Practicing Research in Writing Studies: Reflexive and Ethically Responsible Research (pp. 97–121). Hampton Press.
Wineburg, S., & McGrew, S. (2017). Lateral reading: Reading less and learning more when evaluating digital information (Sanford History Education Group Working Paper No. 2107-A1 ID 3048994). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3048994
Abi & Benton try to come to terms with the fact that information technology has not lived up to our greatest moral hopes for it. We compare our optimistic initial experiences with the internet to our pessimistic outlooks about it today. We discuss Ridolfo & Hart-Davidson’s book RhetOps: Rhetoric and Information Warfare, which reveals new ways that rhetorical knowledge can be weaponized by bad actors.
Sources and further reading
Bakke, A. (2020). Everyday Googling: Results of an observational study and applications for teaching algorithmic literacy. Computers and Composition, 57, 102577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2020.102577
Dombrowski, P. M. (1992). Challenger and the social contingency of meaning: Two lessons for the technical communication classroom. Technical Communication Quarterly, 1(3), 73–86.
Content warning: suicide. Drawing on the book Cultish by Amanda Montell, we discuss the rhetorical strategies used by cult leaders such as Jim Jones (People’s Temple) and L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology), and how we see similar strategies used today in less extreme but still potentially dangerous contexts like multi-level marketing and fitness crazes. We hope you come away from the episode with a better understanding of why people join cults and how to recognize your own weak spots when it comes to cultish rhetoric.
Sources and further reading
Berman, S. (2021). Don’t Call it a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM. Steerforth Press.
Friedlander, L. (2020, September 4). Proper Preparation and Planning (Season 2, Episode 2). In The Boys. Amazon Prime.
Furst, J., & Nason, J. W. (2021, September 10). LuLaRich [Documentary]. Amazon Prime.
Hill, J. M., & Pulitzer, L. (2013). Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape. HarperCollins.
What can conspiracy theories teach us about how arguments work? Plus, Benton demonstrates that the U.S. did in fact land on the moon, Abi invents a conspiracy theory, and Benton aces a quiz on Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Books discussed include Awful Archives by Jenny Rice and Demagogue for President by Jennifer Mercieca.
Sources and further reading
Burke, K. (1939, 2020). The rhetoric of Hitler’s “battle.” In Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism (pp. 33–50). Routledge.
Katz, S. B. (1992). The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust. College English, 54(3), 255. https://doi.org/10.2307/378062
Short answer: Not entirely. But there is still a role for rhetoric. We talk about the book Vaccine Rhetorics by Heidi Lawrence, and how her theory of material exigence might apply to the COVID vaccine situation. We also discuss the potential of gamifying and “pre-bunking” to counteract medical misinformation. Stay to the end for bonus Schwarzenegger and Picard impressions by Benton.
Sources and further reading
Bitzer, L. F. (1992, 1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 1–14.
We pick up our last vax comm chat by addressing historical reasons for vaccine skepticism, the split between personal experience and scientific data as evidence, and Andrew Wakefield’s infamous journal article. We discuss highlights of the book The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin.
Sources and further reading
Kolodziejski, L. R. (2014). Harms of Hedging in Scientific Discourse: Andrew Wakefield and the Origins of the Autism Vaccine Controversy. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23(3), 165–183.
Mnookin, S. (2012). The panic virus: The true story behind the vaccine-autism controversy. Simon and Schuster.
