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August 2019 Volume 66 Number 3 Technical COMMUNICATION • Journal of the Society for Technical Communication

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What is a technical communicator? Technical communicators develop and design instructional and informational tools needed to ensure safe, appropriate, and effective use of science and technology, intellectual property, and manufactured products and services. Technical communicators combine multimedia knowledge and strong communication skills with technical expertise to provide education across the entire spectrum of users’ abilities, technical experience, and visual and auditory capabilities. For more information visit www.stc.org/about-stc/defining-technical-communication. The Society for Technical Communication is the largest association of technical communicators in the world. STC is currently classifying the Body of Knowledge for the field and communicating the value of technical communication. Its volunteer leadership continues to work with government bodies and standards organizations to increase awareness and accurate perception of technical communication. Membership is open to all with an interest in technical communication. Visit the STC Web site (www.stc.org) for details on membership categories, fees, and benefits.

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Learn more at www.stc.org/certification VOLUME 66, NUMBER 3 August 2019 ISSN 0049-3155

August 2019

August 2019 ARTICLES Volume 66 Number 3

APPLIED RESEARCH 209 “Don’t Be a Dilbert”: Transmedia Storytelling as Technical Communication during and after World War II By Edward A. Malone

APPLIED RESEARCH 230 Next-Gen Résumés: A Case Study of Using Transmedia Storytelling to Create Personal Branding on LinkedIn By Lynn B. McCool DEPARTMENTS

APPLIED RESEARCH 201 EDITORIAL Introduction to Special Issue 244 The Transmedia Workbench: Technical on Transmedia, Participatory Culture, Communication and User-Driven Innovation and Digital Creation By David Mueller David Wright, Daniel C. Reardon, and Edward A. Malone APPLIED RESEARCH 208 ARTISTS’ NOTES 257 Communally Designed Deception: Participatory On the Cover Technical Communication Practices in an 296 TOOLS OF THE TRADE Amateur Game Design Community Review of Four Books By Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton on Content Strategy By Kit Brown-Hoekstra APPLIED RESEARCH and Alyssa Fox 272 Memetic Variation in The Whole30: 300 BOOK REVIEWS Understanding Content Consistency in a Jackie Damrau, Editor Transmediated Nutritional Program ONLINE ONLY By Carleigh Davis TECHCOMM.STC.ORG APPLIED RESEARCH E19 RECENT & RELEVANT 284 The Participatory Culture of Technical Lyn Gattis, Editor Communication in Online Gaming Communities By Carly Finseth

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About the Journal When using previously published • Page 1: Cover page – Title of the Technical Communication is a peer- materials (for example, images or text manuscript, a running head, and the reviewed, quarterly journal published by excerpts), authors are responsible for names, affiliations, and contact info the Society for Technical Communication obtaining the permissions needed to reprint of all authors (STC). It is aimed at an audience of copyrighted materials. • Page 2: Structured abstract – A technical communication practitioners The typical article length is between summary of the article (maximum and academics. The journal’s goal is to 5,000 and 8,000 words. Exceptions 250 words), using the headings contribute to the body of knowledge of the are possible. “Purpose,” “Method,” “Results,” field of technical communication from a Use up to three levels of headings, and “Conclusion” multidisciplinary perspective, with special and indicate them clearly. 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The review criteria 4th edition; on punctuation, format, and reference list for both accuracy and are listed at www.stc.org/techcomm/ citation style, the Publication Manual of conformance to the Publication Manual instructions-for-authors/. the American Psychological Association, of the American Psychological Association 6th edition. (APA), pp. 169–224. Copyrights Submit your manuscript as a double- The Society for Technical Communication Manuscript Preparation and Submission spaced electronic file with one-inch requires that authors transfer copyrights Submitting a manuscript to Technical margins. Do not attempt to mimic the to STC for articles appearing in Communication for review and possible format or layout of a published article. Technical Communication and grant publication implies that its submission has Keep the layout as clean and simple as STC permission to post the articles on been approved by all authors, researchers, possible. Technical Communication Online for and/or organizations involved, that the Microsoft Word files are preferred. an indefinite period. STC will grant manuscript (or a substantial portion) has If you use another word processor, a Rich colleges, universities, and libraries the not been published before, and that the Text Format (RTF) file is also acceptable. right to use the articles free of charge for manuscript is not under review elsewhere. Organize your manuscript as follows: educational purposes. Guest Editorial

David Wright, Daniel C. Reardon, and Edward A. Malone

Introduction to Special Issue on Transmedia, Participatory Culture, and Digital Creation In its broadest sense, transmedia Lowe’s Camelot from 1960. In each each new media technology refers to projects that combine version of the Arthurian legend, transformed storytelling to fit the several media platforms. More key locations, plots, and characters new technology. In fact, it was specifically, transmedia has evolved have changed or been added, and McLuhan (1964) who coined the into a heuristic for understanding many have been eliminated. But now somewhat amorphous and the digital spread of a single idea as in all transmedia, a central core hackneyed phrase, “The medium is into multiple iterations of that remains—the spirit of an idea, the message” (p. 4). For McLuhan, idea. Through digitization, media carried through each new form. In the transmitter of the message was consumers become participants the Arthurian legends, that central more important than the message in the shaping, redefining, and spirit is Arthur—the boy who itself. King Arthur’s song “I Wonder production of media; in effect, becomes king and who attempts to What the King Is Doing Tonight” is often through transmedia, build a better world. less relevant than the fact that King consumers become producers. While transmedia storytelling Arthur sings. And he sings because Transmedia may also be understood has existed for centuries as a he is in a Broadway musical. as a cultural exchange; by that phenomenon, its codification While McLuhan was primarily cultural definition, transmedia as and definition are fairly recent, concerned with the influence a phenomenon is much older than beginning in 1964 with Marshal of media on individuals, the the digital era and has most often McLuhan’s Understanding Media. transformative power of individuals referred to storytelling. Folktales, McLuhan (1964) declared that to exert influence and change on for instance, exist in several versions, “it is the medium that shapes and media was explored by Michel de adapted and changed over several controls the scale and form of Certeau in The Practice of Everyday centuries to appeal to audiences of human association and action” Life (1984). In his analysis of what sometimes widely disparate cultures. (p. 9). He recognized the growing he called “strategy” and “tactics,” Another example of early power of media—what he de Certeau (1984) argued that transmedia storytelling would be understood as print, television, “strategies are actions which, thanks the Arthurian legends. The first radio, and film—to shape lives. Any to the establishment of a place of mention of King Arthur dates to new communication technology power, elaborate theoretical places the 9th century; the first extent became “media” for McLuhan, and, capable of articulating an ensemble story about Arthur dates from through its use, any new technology of physical places in which forces are 1138 CE by the Welsh monk changes human experience. distributed” (p. 38). As de Certeau Geoffrey of Monmouth. Since then, McLuhan (1964) also saw media as (1984) used the term, strategies are stories of King Arthur have been interconnected: Radio plays were created by insiders—by those with adapted, conflated, transformed, derived from stage performances, power. Strategies exert force on the updated, and embellished into which also influenced cinema powerless, as the powerful enact epic poetry, opera, novels, films, production. Television—at least their will. Tactics, however, exist animation, television series, and to McLuhan—was a derivative of in opposition to strategies; tactics a Broadway musical—Lerner and cinema. According to McLuhan, are “the circumstances which the

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precise instant of an intervention distinction between manufacturer instance, accomplished by mass transforms into a favorable and consumer—or author and marketing Star Wars through situation” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 38). reader—Jenkins (2008) predicted hundreds of consumer products. The powerless insert themselves into that regarding storytelling in the Equating transmedia storytelling the world of the powerful through Internet age, cocreation would with world-building, Jenkins tactics and transform the strategic wreak havoc with traditional legal envisioned an entertainment spaces they use. definitions of ownership, copyright, industry in which fans, players, Prahalad and Ramaswamy and property of narratives: “Soon, viewers, and consumers participate (2000) effectively merged the licensing will give way to what in the development and expansion theories of McLuhan (1964) industry insiders are calling ‘co- of storytelling empires that stretch and de Certeau (1984). The creation.’ In cocreation, the across several media, from novels authors described how, in the new companies collaborate from the and short stories to comics, films, millennium’s emerging Internet beginning to create content they short videos, and digital games. age, nearly instantaneous customer know plays well in each of their One recent and financially feedback regarding satisfaction or sectors, allowing each medium to successful example of transmedia dissatisfaction with marketable generate new experiences for the storytelling would be the Marvel goods and services would consumer and expand points of Cinematic Universe (MCU), begun revolutionize the manufacturing entry into the franchise” (p. 105). by fits and starts in 1998 with New and retail worlds, because These points of entry would result Line Cinema’s Blade and in 2000 companies would be able to far in avenues, or what de Certeau with the filmX-Men , then a licensed more quickly and efficiently adapt (1984) would call “spaces,” for property of Twentieth Century to consumer desires. Prahalad and consumers to influence what stories Fox, after Marvel Comics sold a Ramaswamy (2000) called this new are told, how they are told, and number of its properties to New form of Internet-created consumer who tells them. In effect, consumers Line, Fox, and Sony in an effort empowerment “cocreation,” because will become cocreators of narratives to acquire capital for the flagging consumers effectively “become across multiple platforms. Jenkins comics company. After the box a new source of competence for (2008) further described that “in office success of Fox’sX-Men and the corporation. The competence the world of media convergence, the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man that customers bring is a function every important story gets told, films (2002, 2004, 2007) by Sony of the knowledge and skills they every brand gets sold, and every Pictures, Marvel decided to create possess, their willingness to learn consumer gets courted across their own films using some of their and experiment, and their ability multiple media platforms” (p. 3). less popular characters because their to engage in an active dialogue” Jenkins (2008) noted that most successful properties were (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000, while the idea of transmedia is under license by other studios. Their para. 7). In other words, consumers ancient, the speed and degrees to first attempt wasIron Man, released become cocreators of products, in a which transmedia now proliferates in 2008 and produced by Kevin sense, working with manufacturers is unprecedented because of the Feige and Marvel films president on the improvement of goods and Internet era, in which the idea of Avi Arad. Directed by Jon Favreau services. information is fluid, can travel and starring Robert Downey, Jr. as Cocreation, transformation, and change instantaneously, and Tony Stark/Iron Man, this first film spaces, tactics, the medium, and the is activated or transmitted in an in what would officially become message—such are the cornerstones instant by millions. Ultimately known as the “Marvel Cinematic of transmedia, as described by acknowledging the economic power Universe,” ignited the franchise and Henry Jenkins in Convergence of transmedia storytelling, Jenkins launched 22 films in what Feige— Culture (2008). Describing forecasted marketing creation who eventually took the reigns as what he envisioned as a loss of beyond what George Lucas, for Marvel films CEO—called “The

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Infinity Saga.” An additional MCU with customers through only one one of our contributors) worlds of film—Spider-Man: Far from Home medium, and rarely do customers technology-in-use. (2019)—debuted in July 2019, with communicate with one another Although transmedia several more Marvel films on the or those companies through one communication is not new, its use way. medium. Instead, they tend to has intensified and proliferated in Each MCU character is based repurpose information for different recent decades and will continue to on a Marvel comics original, most modalities and develop product do so as people have more media of which debuted in the 1960s. awareness, relationships with at their ready command. Our work Since then, Marvel superhero customers, and brand loyalties lives have changed and become characters have appeared in various across media. To acquire a more complex because of transmedia incarnations through Saturday comprehensive understanding of a communication. Although there are morning cartoons, in toys, product or service, a consumer may more opportunities to incorporate lunchboxes, school backpacks, watch a video, look at photographs the advantages of transmedia t-shirt logos, mass market novels, or diagrams, and read producer- communication into our work lives, and digital games. The Marvel generated literature as well as user not every industry embraces those “multiverse” encompasses several comments. Moreover, the consumer practices, and there are precarious Earth-like worlds—all called Earth, may choose to participate in the disadvantages to be negotiated as and all featuring versions of popular user forum or engage in other social well (Fast & Jansson, 2019). In Marvel characters. Several of these interactions supporting the product addition, corporate responsibility has characters converged in a 2018 or service. been closely scrutinized (Morsing Marvel animated film,Spider- Jenkins (2011) noted that & Schultz, 2006; Capriotti, 2011; Man: Into the Spider Verse, which transmedia storytelling is only Coombs, 2019), as users have more featured six different versions of the one “logic for thinking about the access to corporations through more character. Some were reimaginings flow of content across media.” modes of communication than ever of Peter Parker, and others were As examples of other logics, he before, and as artificial intelligence entirely new characters. One listed “transmedia branding, has become a powerful tool for was Spider-Ham—a pig named transmedia performance, connecting with users and branding Peter Porker—created by Larry transmedia ritual, transmedia corporate values. Hama, Tom DeFalco, and Mark play, transmedia activism, and At the same time, transmedia Armstrong in 1983. transmedia spectacle.” To this has given rise to cocreation and list might be added transmedia crowdsourcing on vast scales. This Transmedia in Technical learning and transmedia work. is especially true within industries Communication Although transmedia storytelling such as the gaming industry, whose has long been used to communicate customers have grown up with The termtransmedia has entered technical information, transmedia transmedia communication. Game the academic vernacular at this technical communication is usually developers now struggle to satisfy point. Scores of journal articles predicated on a different logic (and customers who both have access dealing with transmedia exist, sometimes more than one logic) of to and use multiple platforms and many others are likely to content flow. The content is often to actively voice their concerns. come. However, within technical expository rather than narrative and Patching games in response to those communication journals, the topic nonfictional rather than fictional. concerns is now commonplace has been slower to diffuse, even Users form communities that (Sherlock, 2014), and ugly though much of today’s technical are at least partly constructed by confrontations have taken place at communication is conducted the media they use to exchange times between game developers and transmedially in practice. Rarely information, support one another’s their customers (Reardon, Wright, do companies communicate goals, and build (in the words of & Malone, 2017). As Hepp (2014)

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showed, these changes are due as intertextuality (invoking one McCool challenges professional much to changes in society as to text in another), and additive communication educators to changes in technology, as users now comprehension (incremental consider next generation (next- have unprecedented access to both gains in understanding). Malone gen) resumes as an alternative corporations and, perhaps more explores the development of the to traditional resumes. Young importantly, to one another. Dilbert myth across various media, professionals are using social Technical communication including posters, manuals, films, media platforms such as Facebook, today is usually accomplished magazine columns, shaming rituals, Twitter, Instagram, and especially through multiple media and often training devices, and even nose art LinkedIn to engage in personal across media in the truest sense on aircraft (multimodality). He branding and career building. of transmedia. The meanings points to the ways in which the McCool examines Tyrone Jacobs, that are constructed through texts connected to one another— Jr.’s LinkedIn profile, focusing transmediated content are much both in the same medium and on the way he uses various media harder to define than those across media (intertextuality). A in conjunction with personal conveyed through single-medium text might incorporate, quote from, narratives to foster engagement in content because of the fragmented respond to, or in some other way a participatory culture of LinkedIn and subjective nature of their invoke another text (such as using users. Technical communicators construction. Yet we must study a Dilbert poster in the Dilbert film, and other working professionals— the processes of meaning making or a Dilbert poster in a book or a and students who aspire to become to understand them. The articles in magazine column, or the nickname working professionals—should note this special issue examine various “Dilbert” for an underwater cockpit that Jacobs has been developing and uses of transmedia in technical escape device). Finally, Malone maintaining his next-gen resume communication, with an emphasis argues that each contribution to throughout his career. His resume on participatory culture and digital the Dilbert myth (whether it was a is not something he takes out and creation. Along with previously poster, an installment of a magazine dusts off only when he is trying published articles (e.g., Ding, 2012; column, or something else) was to find a job; it is his presence in McNely, 2017; Gallon, Lorenzo, a contribution to the audience’s an always-on, always-connected & Josefowicz, 2017), the articles safety training—a hodgepodge world, bringing him visibility in this issue contribute to our of discrete rules, examples, and and opportunities while he is understanding of the approaches to advice that the pilot assembled on the job. McCool’s case study and nature of transmedia technical into a better understanding of safe shows that, in an age of digital communication. flying (additive comprehension). media and social networking, This training was never complete transmedia storytelling techniques The Articles in This Issue but rather ongoing as accidents are instrumental in telling our happened, new strategies were personal stories in a professional In “‘Don’t Be a Dilbert’: Transmedia developed, and technologies setting. They allow us to build our Storytelling in Technical advanced. Malone suggests that this stories incrementally across several Communication during and after historical example might serve as media and create engagement World War II,” Edward A. Malone a pedagogical tool for introducing and emotional connections with discusses the pre-digital age use of transmedia storytelling concepts prospective employers and others. transmedia storytelling techniques and techniques to technical In “The Transmedia in the U.S. Navy’s Dilbert safety communication students. Workbench: Technical campaign for pilots. Transmedia In “Next-Gen Resumes: A Communication and User-Driven storytelling requires multimodality Case Study of Using Transmedia Innovation,” David Mueller uses (the use of diverse media, though Storytelling to Create Branding the metaphor of a transmedia not necessarily digital media), on LinkedIn,” Lynn B. workbench to describe a space

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in which the users of a product, challenge technical communicators collected and analyzed the most the Moog Werkstatt synthesizer, to “expand their understanding of frequently occurring memes in a set can work collaboratively to build world-making beyond the notion of of printed books and a Facebook resources and relationships across fictionalization.” Toward this end, Community Page—both supporting multiple media. The workbench they study the activities of a group of a popular nutritional program, is exemplified by the Werkstatt individuals playing social deception The Whole30. A meme is “a unit Workshop, an online user portal games in an asynchronous forum. of communication” by a human that provides resources for building The game designers in this group, or nonhuman (e.g., technology) and modifying the synthesizer. known as MafiEra, create games that that is repeated one or more times Those resources take various forms contribute to the transmedia worlds and derives its rhetorical purpose (messages, schematics, proposals, of franchises such as Game of Thrones from its relationship with other and testimonials) and use different and Harry Potter, while all group memes in a given context. Davis media (images, video, text, and members help to create the MafiEra discovered that interface memes software). Many of these resources world by developing game rules such as hypertextual design, a are created by and elaborated upon and documentation across diverse haptic-textual interface, and the by the users of the product as they media. It is the making of the physical separation of information share ideas and problems and help MafiEra world—and other worlds from sources can determine whether one another accomplish their goals. like it—that should be of interest to important content memes will As a transmedia documentation technical communicators who want transfer successfully across media. network, the workbench facilitates to study world-making processes One such content meme—a relationship building and in the context of game-design skepticism of scientific research— innovation among users who assume ecologies. Although the design transferred successfully from the roles such as engineer, critic, and practices, including the technical books to the Facebook Page, because musician. As Mueller writes, “Just communication practices, of both memeplexes (the books and the as fictional transmedia narratives professional game design studios are Facebook Page) included interface foster rich participatory engagement usually kept hidden from the public, memes that facilitated the sharing among media consumers, a the practices of amateur game of personal experience. Davis transmedia documentation network design communities are likely to advises technical communicators to can enable users to assume active be visible and, therefore, accessible determine which memes are suitable, roles in the design and production to researchers. Studying the design as they are, for transmediation, of technical objects.” Mueller practices of MafiEra and similar and which ones require adaptation believes that such networks present communities can provide insight or even rejection in favor of new opportunities for professional into the activities of the professional ones. Moving content across technical communicators to become studios, but amateur game design media without this understanding administrators and coordinators of communities are also worthy of may cause an audience to ignore user-driven production rather than study in their own right. important content or (even worse) just content creators. In “Memetic Variation in the misunderstand it. The authors of “Communally Whole30: Understanding Content What genres of technical Designed Deception: Participatory Consistency in a Transmediated communication do gamers create? Technical Communication Nutritional Program,” Carleigh Why and how do they create these Practices in an Amateur Game Davis considers the effect of diverse artifacts? Carly Finseth Design Community” draw upon transmediation (i.e., switching answers these questions in “The personal experience as inveterate media) on the acceptance and Participatory Culture of Technical forum game players in this study of understanding of content, for Communication in Online Gaming participatory game design. Alisha example, on the perceived credibility Communities.” One of the most Karabinus and Rachel Atherton of scientific information. She useful findings of her study of 10

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game-related websites is a list of De Certeau, M. (1984). The Hepp, A. (2014). Communicative 24 distinct genres of game-based practice of everyday life (S. figurations: Researching technical communication (forum Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley, CA: cultures of mediatization. posts, graphics, shareables, trivia, University of California Press. Zeszyty Prasoznawcze, 218(2), etc.). Finseth indicates whether Ding, H. (2012). Grassroots 145–161. each genre is typically site, user, emergency health risk Home. (2019) Wookieepedia: The and/or community constructed. communication and transmedia Star Wars wiki. Retrieved from Also valuable is her list of nine public participation: H1N1 https://starwars.fandom.com/ purposes of game-based technical flu, travelers from epicenters, wiki/Main_Page communication—from the usual and cyber vigilantism. Rhetoric, Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence (to solve problems, to provide Professional Communication, culture: Where old and new information) to the unusual (to and Globalization, 3, 15–35. media collide. New York, NY: post bragging rights). In discussing Retrieved from https://web. New York University Press. how gamers create technical archive.org/web/2018042117 Jenkins, H. (2010). Transmedia communication artifacts, Finseth 4343/http://www.rpcg.org/ education: The 7 principles emphasizes the important role of index.hp?journal=rpcg&page= revisited. Confessions of an transmedia: “Players in participatory article &op=download&path ACA-fan. [Blog post]. Retrieved cultures consistently create game- []=49&path[]=pdf from http://henryjenkins.org/ based materials as part of their social Fast, K., & Jansson, A. (2019). blog/2010/06/transmedia_ identity, stretching across modes Transmedia work: Privilege education_the_7_pri.html and media to suit their rhetorical and precariousness in digital Jenkins, H. (2011, July 31). goals.” Three different individuals modernity. Abingdon-on- Transmedia 202: Further might produce strategy guides, Thames, UK: Routledge. reflections. Confessions of an and they might provide the same Feige, K., & Pascal, A. (Producers) ACA-fan. [Blog post]. Retrieved (or some of the same) information & Watts, J. (Director). (2019). from http://henryjenkins. and advice, but the first might be Spider-Man: Far from home. org/blog/2011/08/defining_ a podcast, the second a text, and [Motion Picture]. USA: Marvel transmedia_further_re.html the third a video walkthrough. A Studios. Lerner, A.J., & Lowe, F. (1960) user might consult all three (or just Frankfurt, P. (Producer), & Camelot [musical]. Dir. Moss one or two) to increase his or her Norrington, S. (Director). Hart. understanding of gameplay. (1998). Blade. [Motion Picture]. McLuhan, M. (1964). USA: New Line Cinema. Understanding media: The References Gallon, R., Lorenzo, N., & extensions of man. New York, Josefowicz, M. (2017). NY: McGraw-Hill. Arad, A., & Feige, K. (Producers), Of humans and robots— McNely, B. (2017). Moments and & Favreau, J. (Director). Communication challenges metagenres: Coordinating (2008). Iron Man. [Motion in industry 4.0. TC World complex, multigenre narratives. Picture]. USA: Marvel Studios. Magazine. Retrieved from http:// Journal of Business and Technical Capriotti, P. (2011). Communicating www.tcworld.info/e-magazine/ Communication, 31(4), corporate social responsibility technical-communication/ 443–444. through the internet and article/of-humans-and-robots- Morsing, M., & Schultz, M. (2006). social media. In Ø. Ihlen, J. L. communication-challenges-in- Corporate social responsibility Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), The industry-40/ communication: Stakeholder handbook of communication and Hama, L., DeFalco, T., & information, response and corporate social responsibility (pp. Armstrong, M. (1983). Spider- involvement strategies. Business 358–378). Chichester, England: Ham. [Comic Series]. New Ethics: A European Review, Wiley & Sons. York, NY: Marvel Comics. 15(4), 323–338.

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David Wright, Daniel C. Reardon, and Edward A. Malone

Prahalad, C. K., & Ramaswamy, About the Guest Editors V. (2000). Co-opting customer competence. The Harvard Edward A. Malone is Professor Business Review. Retrieved of English and Technical from https://hbr.org/2000/01/ Communication at Missouri co-opting-customer-competence University of Science and Reardon, D. C., Wright, D., & Technology, where he teaches Malone, E. A. (2017). Quest courses in the international for the happy ending to Mass technical communication, technical Effect 3: The challenges of editing, and the history of technical cocreation with consumers in a communication. He is available at post-Certeauian age. Technical [email protected]. Communication Quarterly, 26(1), 42–58. Retrieved from David Wright is an Associate https://www.tandfonline.com/ Professor of English and Technical doi/full/10.1080/10572252.20 Communication at Missouri 16.1257742 University of Science and Schuler-Donner, L., & Winter, Technology. His research interests R. (Producers), & Singer, B. include technology diffusion, (Director). (2000). X-Men. technical communication history, [Motion Picture]. USA: 20th and strategic communication. He is Century Fox. available at [email protected]. Sherlock, L. (2014). Patching as design rhetoric: Tracing the Daniel Reardon is Associate Chair framing and delivery of iterative and Associate Professor of English at content documentation in Missouri University of Science and online games. In J. deWinter Technology, where he teaches Game & R. M. Moeller (Eds.), Studies, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Computer games and technical Literature. Dan has published communication: Critical articles and chapters on technical methods and applications at the communication, writing program intersection (pp. 157–170). New administration, and higher education York, NY: Routledge. administration. He and Dr. David Ziskin, L., & Bryce, I. (Producers), Wright are completing a monograph & Raimi, S. (Director). (2002) on technical communication in Spider-Man. [Motion Picture]. digital games. He is available at USA: Columbia Pictures (Sony). [email protected]. Ziskin, L, & Arad, A. (Producers), & Raimi, S. (Director). (2004). Spider-Man 2. [Motion Picture]. USA: Columbia Pictures (Sony). Ziskin, L, Arad, A., & Curtis, G. (Producers), & Raimi, S. (Director). (2007). Spider-Man 3. [Motion Picture]. USA: Columbia Pictures (Sony).

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 207 Artists’ Notes

On the Cover Honorable Mention

I wanted to recreate a Matrix vibe, but I wanted to do I wanted my illustration to emphasize discourse and something a little simpler. I used the “1’s” and “0’s” to communication in the Digital Age. The color blue symbolize binary code with “Transcend” and “Media” sparks creativity, which is why I used a blue gradient in green as an homage to The Matrix. I wanted there to for the background. I reversed the gradient for the be a combination/clash of media, and I purposely used digital brain icon I created and placed in the center a filter to wash everything out to look as if everything of the conversation bubble. Also, I felt like the brain was “transcending” together. I also had a shadow cast looked awfully close to a tree, so having the darker to show the interaction between the original creation of shade of blue toward the bottom helped distinguish the media (the hand) to the language of the computer. brain stem (or, at least, that was the goal). I chose to represent information with a digital brain icon because About the Artist it blends technology, communication, and knowledge. I designed my figures to look like they are conversing J.R. Harmon is a graduate student at Eastern Kentucky and sharing ideas in a physical space about something University, studying rhetoric and composition. This ambiguous that is presumably related to technology and master of arts program includes the use of technology knowledge. Technology has given humans the ability in the classroom and how educators can utilize multiple to share knowledge at the blink of an eye. It’s only tools to enhance learning. J.R. wants to incorporate appropriate to highlight this feat! methods that not only appeal to a generation raised in the digital era but also foster an environment that About the Artist encourages inclusiveness. He is available at jason_ [email protected]. Daniel McFarland is a graduate assistant at Eastern Kentucky University, where he is earning a master of arts in English, concentrating on rhetoric and composition. As an undergraduate, Daniel received a BA in English Literature and minored in psychology. His research interests include 20th Century American literature, women and gender studies, sexology, and the benefits of substance use in therapeutic and clinical settings. Daniel is available at [email protected].

208 Technical Communication l Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 Applied Research “Don’t Be a Dilbert”: Transmedia Storytelling as Technical Communication during and after World War II By Edward A. Malone

Abstract Purpose: My goal was to determine whether the U.S. Navy’s “Don’t Be a Dilbert” aviation safety campaign during World War II was a fully developed example of transmedia storytelling and whether it could be used as an illustration of transmedia storytelling in technical communication. Method: I located and gathered primary sources in the Navy’s safety campaign from archives, museums, and military and civilian publications, and then analyzed these artifacts according to the definition and attributes of transmedia storytelling in Jenkins (2007, 2011). Results: From my analysis, I found that the Navy’s use of the Dilbert myth combined multimodality with radical intertextuality in order to foster additive comprehension; it also employed a robust set of transmedia storytelling techniques. Conclusion: These findings suggest that transmedia storytelling was used to communicate technical information before the digital age and that the Navy’s Dilbert campaign is a potentially useful historical example for illustrating transmedia storytelling techniques. Keywords: transmedia storytelling, participatory culture, safety education, cartoon characters, history of technical communication

Practitioner’s • Examines the role of transmedia communication students to Takeaway: storytelling in a high-stakes training transmedia storytelling program in which entertainment • Contributes to an understanding of supported education the history of transmedia storytelling • Provides a potential pedagogical in technical communication tool for introducing technical

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Introduction Most people are familiar with Dilbert, the main character in Scott Adams’ comic strip about an engineer who, in some ways, epitomizes the white- collar worker in corporate America. Adams developed this cartoon character and held a contest in his workplace to name him. A friend suggested the name Dilbert. Only later did Adams realize that the friend had borrowed the name from a cartoon character (Figure 1) used during World War II to promote safety among Navy pilots (Adams, 1997, p. 10). The earlier Dilbert—who was nothing like the current Dilbert—was famous in his own right, beginning as a cartoon character on posters and Figure 1. A Dilbert poster. I took this photograph of the appearing later in a live-action film, a series of original poster in the Library of Congress (LOT 8939 G, Box 2). technical manuals, at least one short story, poems, Some Dilbert posters were printed in black and white, others a recurring advice column about safety in Naval in one or two colors. Notice the number in the lower left- Aviation News, and even a magazine advertisement hand corner. This poster was the 366th poster in the Dilbert (Grumman, 1956). He took the form of a doll used the Pilot series. Osborn also drew posters about Spoiler the in technical demonstrations, was hanged in effigy in Mechanic, but they were numbered separately. more than one hangar, and served as the eponym of several awards that no one wanted to win. There was Jenkins (2011) pointed to the works of L. Frank even a mechanical device, the Dilbert Dunker, used by Baum, Walt Disney, and J. R. R. Tolkien as historical the Navy to train pilots to escape from a submerged, antecedents of transmedia storytelling. The military’s upside-down cockpit. use of Dilbert and similar characters differs from Drawn by artist Robert C. Osborn, Dilbert these literary examples in that its primary goal the pilot became a focal point in a world of aircraft was to instruct its audience in a technical subject. accidents, loss of human life and costly equipment, Nevertheless, the many exploits of Dilbert and his and aviation safety. Through transmedia storytelling, companions fit Jenkins’ (2011) requirement for a Navy pilots and others involved in aviation were transmedia story: They combine multimodality with trained in safety while being entertained—or, in the radical intertextuality in order to foster additive case of the Dilbert Dunker, terrified on a ride that comprehension. one might like to find in an amusement park. Jenkins In the following sections, I will use this definition (2007) defined transmedia storytelling as “a process to organize my discussion of the “Dilbert” myth, where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed identifying the different media across which the systematically across multiple delivery channels for story was told and describing the role of radical the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated intertextuality in fostering additive comprehension. entertainment experience” (para. 2). In the fictional I believe an analysis of this historical example world of Dilbert, though, the entertainment was can elucidate contemporary transmedia practices, subordinate to education—a form of storytelling that reinforcing Jenkins’s (2011) point that transmedia is sometimes referred to as transmedia learning (e.g., storytelling is not about particular media but rather Fleming, 2013). Through Dilbert and other antiheroes the way in which the media are used and the logics and villains of aviation safety, the U.S. Navy and Army underpinning their uses. Rather than being an Air Forces taught its cadets and other personnel what antecedent or prefiguration of current transmedia to do and what not do in a multimillion-dollar aircraft. practices, the military’s use of Dilbert was a fully Not only is transmedia storytelling not new in realized example of those practices—one that predates general, but it is not new in technical communication. the digital age.

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Reintroducing Dilbert and His World a successful World War I pilot who had immigrated to the U.S. long before World War II and had promoted The United States entered World War II formally in aviation through illustrated educational books for late 1941, long after other countries, such as England, novices, including children. Later, during World War Italy, and Australia. Aircraft training accidents became II, he would head up a civilian company, Jordanoff a serious problem for allied nations. The British Aviation, that produced technical documentation for Royal Air Force (RAF) lost about 8,000 men in “non- military aircraft (Romero, 1945). One of the cartoon operational flying,” mostly accidents, during the war characters in his book Through the Overcast: The Weather (Mason, 2018). The U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) lost and the Art of Instrument Flying (1938) was Cloudy Joe, about 7,000 planes in training and other activities in a bungling pilot who often did the opposite of what was the States, compared to about 4,500 planes in combat advised (Hamilton, 1991; Hadaway, 2006). with the Japanese (Mireles, 2006, p. xi). Before the war, Anthony Armstrong, a humorist with Punch, was the average number of fatalities in AAF aircraft training tasked with creating a monthly training publication as was 51 per year; during the war, it rose to 3,675 per well as a Cloudy Joe character for the RAF. A memo year (Pierce, 2013, pp. xiv–xv). The Navy’s Bureau of from the Air Council described what was needed: “for Aeronautics also suffered avoidable losses in training our purposes we require something that is altogether during the war. lighter in touch and has sufficient ‘pep’ and literary To reduce the number of training accidents, the merit to be read for its own sake. Title, cover, layout, United Kingdom tried various strategies, including illustrations and even type fount must all be selected posters. In May 1940, the RAF issued a series of non- with this end in view” (as cited in Hamilton, 1991, p. humorous posters similar to “air diagrams” used in 14). Armstrong enlisted Fougasse to create the cover of 1918 to promote aviation safety (Hadaway, 2006, p. the publication and Hooper to draw the cartoons. 59). They were artistic and informative but not nearly In April 1941, the Directorate began publishing the as engaging as a cartoon would be. Two month later, monthly training magazine Tee Emm (an expansion of the RAF issued a set of humorous “Once Is Too Often” the initials T. M. for Training Memorandum). Both light posters, each drawn by Cyril Kenneth Bird, a Punch and informative, the magazine featured articles about cartoonist using the pseudonym Fougasse (“Speaking,” proper deportment (dress, conduct, etc.) and other 1942, p. 11). In one of these posters, a stalling airplane was heading into some telephone wires, and the caption read, “I’m afraid this is going to cure me completely of taking off before my engine’s warmed up!” In another, the pilot was about to crash into a tree (Figure 2). Also in 1940, the RAF’s No. 13 Group produced a small training manual for fighter pilots:Forget-Me- Nots for Fighters, written collaboratively by members of the group and illustrated with cartoons by Aircraftman William “Bill” Hooper. The manual covered such topics as “Evasive tactics,” “Reporting the enemy,” and “Bailing out,” as well as a plethora of dos and don’ts. This serious-humorous manual was well received by pilots and reinforced the case for using cartoons in pilot training. It also brought Hooper to the attention of Figure 2. A World War II flight safety poster byPunch car- higher ups. toonist Cyril Kenneth Bird (alias Fougasse). This is a scan of A commander in the British Ministry’s Directorate the original (n/a.obj-1310282845-m) in the National Library of of Operational Training was familiar with Assen Australia, Canberra. Each poster in this “Once Is Too Often” Jordanoff’s popular aviation books and wanted a series began with the phrase, “I’m afraid this is going to “duff pilot” like Jorandoff’s Cloudy Joe for the RAF cure me completely of …” Fougasse’s posters were used in (Hamilton, 1991). The Bulgarian-born Jordanoff was Australia as well as England during World War II.

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serious subjects for officers, and it included cartoon (“Speaking,” 1942). A year later, Dave Breger created characters such as Pilot Officer Percy Prune, Wireless G. I. Joe, always the odd soldier out, and George Baker Operator Waff Winsum, and Rear Gunner Sergeant created Sad Sack, both for Yank magazine (Breger, Stooge, most of whom were drawn by Hooper. Prune, 1945).1 Also in 1942, Will Eisner began drawing Joe whose last name was a slang word for a fool, was the Dope, a maintenance misfit, for a comic strip inArmy RAF’s Cloudy Joe character, and he was used to teach Motors (Andelman, 2005).2 The military used Dope (or sometimes just admonish) aviators by negative on posters (“Joe Dope,” 1944) and in illustrations example (Fanthorpe, 1997). (Figure 3 shows a page in technical manuals (e.g., U.S. War Department, from the March 1942 issue of Tee Emm.) 1944, p. 22). Beginning in 1943, Theodor Geisel In the United States, quite a few cartoon characters (Dr. Seuss), Chuck Jones (of Looney Tunes fame), Mel emerged during World War II to instruct military Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny, et al.), and other personnel by negative example. In 1941, Jack Zumwalt Hollywood animators, directors, and voice actors created the bungling pilot R. F. Knucklehead, a short- collaborated on animated films about Private Snafu, lived predecessor of Dilbert, for the Army Air Forces “the biggest gold brick and worst soldier in the Army” (Birdwell, 2005, p. 206). Into this universe of military misfits, Dilbert was born in 1942, the artistic creation of Robert C. Osborn (1904-1994). When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the middle-aged Osborn immediately tried to enlist. After trying unsuccessfully to join the regular service, he was offered a commission as a lieutenant in the Volunteer Special Service of the Naval Reserve. He had published a few how-to books with cartoon drawings before the war, and the Navy brass in Washington, D.C., wanted to put his talent to good use. Navy Commander Arthur Doyle was familiar with the Royal Air Force’s use of Prune to promote aviation safety in Europe. Prune served as an inspiration, if not the model, for Dilbert G. Groundloop, a U.S. Navy pilot whose first name alluded to the phrasepulling a dillie, or making a big mistake (Benjamin, 1974, p. 12; Goodman, 1944, p. 132). In the various media in which he appeared, the character was usually called Dilbert, sometimes Dil, very rarely Dillie. In the posters, Dilbert had many facets: the bungling newbie, the arrogant hot shot, the lazy student, the impish mischief-maker, etc. His appearance could change dramatically from one poster to another. Sometimes he was thin, other times fat; sometimes goofy, other times devious or impish. In one poster, he Figure 3. A page featuring Pilot Officer Prune from the British was drawn as a caricature of a Japanese aviator, with the Royal Air Force’s Tee Emm, Number 12, March 1942. I photo- cutline “Dilbert gets to looking more and more like a graphed this page at the National Archives (Archives 1) in Washington, D.C. (RG 313, UD-228, 11W3/8/29/2, Box 8). The 1 In the late 1950s, Breger wrote an article about the use of cartoons in technical list of resolutions suggests that the goal of pilot training was manuals and published it in a journal that eventually developed into STC’s to turn the “Hyde” Prune into the “Jekyll” Prune. A collab- Technical Communication. See Breger (1958). 2 Issues of Army Motors (1940–1945) can found on the website of the Virginia oration between writer Anthony Armstrong and artist Bill Military Preservation Association (VMPA). For a list of those issues, see Hooper, Prune was an antecedent of Osborn’s Dilbert. Virginia (2018).

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Jap every day” (Osborn, n.d.-c). In another poster, he Wheeler, 1986). He emerged to provide commentary looked like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, with and advice on the accidents of the many Dilberts in the the cutline “Dilbert persists in flying mechanically” Navy, but Pettibone’s main haunt was in a periodical, (Osborn, n.d.-a). In the mythology of Dilbert the pilot, Naval Aviation News, rather than on posters. Dilbert was the father of all gremlins, and they all Osborn identified personally and professionally looked like him (Osborn, n.d.-b).3 with Dilbert. He said he felt like a Dilbert when he Other characters soon joined Dilbert’s circle. was learning to fly (Osborn, 1982, p. 79). Much Almost concurrently with Dilbert, Osborn created later, when he was awarded the Navy Legion of Merit Spoiler, an aircraft mechanic who was prone to for his artwork, he drew Dilbert wearing the medal mistakes, more often imperiling pilots than himself. (“Dilbert Decorated,” 1946). When Osborn left the Dilbert and Spoiler appeared together on some posters. military, so did Dilbert: He drew a picture of Dilbert Relatively often, Dilbert had an unnamed “cousin” as on the back of his separation report (Figure 4). As a a co-conspirator in mischief or incompetence. Some civilian, Osborn continued to draw Dilbert cartoons later posters pulled the audience into the posters by for Skyways, a magazine for military, commercial, and substituting “you” for “Dilbert.” recreational aviators. At the same time, he also supplied In 1943, to contrast Dilbert’s lack of experience and illustrations of Dilbert, Grampaw Pettibone, and other care, Osborn and a colleague, Seth Warner, invented characters to Naval Aviation News, postwar training another character, Post Script “Grampaw” Pettibone, an manuals (Jet Sense, Vertigo Sense, etc.), and other experienced pilot from an earlier age (U.S. Navy, 1943; military publications. Pettibone soon eclipsed Dilbert in visibility and popularity among Navy personnel. 3 Gremlins were folkloric creatures who sabotaged airplanes. They were associated with the Royal Air Force long before they gained public notoriety in Roald Dahl’s 1943 children’s book The Gremlins.

Figure 4. Pages from Robert C. Osborn’s separation papers in his Navy personnel file. I photographed these pages at the Nation- al Personnel Records Center, a facility of the National Archives and Records Administration, in St. Louis, Missouri. Note that Dilbert is dressed in civilian clothes.

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Multimodality using an oxygen mask at a high altitude (Osborn, n.d.-h). The Navy printed 3,500 of each poster, for a total of A key part of the definition of transmedia storytelling more than 900,000 posters. So onerous was this work is multimodality or telling across multiple media. that the printing of later posters had to be outsourced to As mentioned earlier, no specific type of medium is the Government Printing Office (GPO). The next 244 required in transmedia storytelling. The media do not posters featured Spoiler the Mechanic and focused on have to be digital, although, nowadays, most or all mistakes in aircraft maintenance. Another 100 posters usually are. What is surprising about the Dilbert story is were devoted to submarine warfare, yet another 24 to that it predates the digital era and yet includes so many swimming, and so on (Goodman, 1944, p. 132). Some different media as well as genres within media—from of the posters were in black and white, but others used posters and films to training devices and rituals to books, one, two, or more colors. Orange dominates the posters manuals, and other print genres, such as magazine in the swimming series while aquamarine dominates the columns (with letters), poems, and a short story. posters in the submarine series. Of course, in the last few decades, much of this The typical poster consisted of a single cartoon analog material has been digitized and is readily drawing, an instructive but humorous caption, a accessible only in digital format. I made heavy use of control number, and the insignia of the U.S. Navy the HathiTrust Digital Library for old issues of Navy Training Division, and later the GPO insignia, as well. magazines and World War II technical reports and Within a drawing, there might be text representing the manuals. Although I inspected more than 300 Dilbert thoughts, speech, or (in a very few instances) writing and Spoiler posters in the Library of Congress, scores of one or more characters (see, for example, Osborn, of these posters have been digitized and posted online. n.d.-f). Rarely was this text enclosed in a bubble, but And Dilbert lives on in new analog media. For example, bubbles were sometimes used for thought pictures. from 2016 to 2018, the Intrepid Air, Sea, and Space The point of view of most of the posters was third Museum hosted an exhibition, Don’t Be a Dilbert: U.S. person omniscient: Dilbert is seen through the eyes of Navy Safety Posters, on the hangar deck of the USS a spectator who is commenting smugly on Dilbert’s Intrepid (Intrepid, 2019). failings. (Figure 5 is another example of this kind of poster.) On rare occasions, a drawing might take Posters Dilbert’s perspective, or nearly so, but the point of view Osborn’s Dilbert posters played a critical role in the of the caption would still remain omniscient (see, for war effort. As one journalist wrote, “It costs the Navy example, Osborn, n.d.-g). $27,500 to train an aviator. The plane he flies after he In orientation, most of the posters were landscape, has finished his training may be a $90,000 fighter or but some were portrait. Although loose posters might a $200,000 flying boat. Dilbert is the little man on be hung in bathrooms, on bulkheads, and on lockers cardboard who helps the Navy protect its investment (Korchin & Patterson, 1949, p. 104), the posters were in men and airplanes” (Goodman, 1944, p. 132). supposed to be displayed in a wooden box with a glass Osborn estimates that he illustrated more than 2,000 cover. Figure 6 shows a set of carpenter’s instructions for of these posters between 1942 and the end of the building such a box. These boxes were fastened to walls war (Benjamin, 1974, p. 11). He may have written in hangars, mess halls, and other common areas. The the captions as well, although his unit included well- typical poster had two punch holes at the top so that it known authors. To find ideas and ensure technical could be hung from screws in the box. Presumably, the accuracy, Osborn completed flight training like a pilot, poster in the box was changed every day or two. interviewed subject-matter experts, visited training centers in the States and ships in the Pacific theater, Books and even flew with pilots on their missions (Goodman, I inspected two books featuring Dilbert drawings: one 1944, p. 132; Benjamin, 1974, p. 11). in which the text was subordinate to the drawings and The posters were organized in themed series. The one in which the drawings were subordinate to the first series of 265 posters—issued in mid-1942—featured text. Both types were introductions to safe flying for a Dilbert and focused on common pilot errors, such as not civilian audience.

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Figure 5. A poster featuring both Spoiler and Dilbert. I took this photograph of the original poster in the Library of Con- gress (LOT 8939 G, Box 2). In World War II, pilots sometimes mistook whales for enemy submarines. As an Australian pilot said, “A whale from the air looks very much like a submarine … I don’t know how many whales I sunk!” (Bennett, 1995, p. 106). The technical information in the poster is that submarine swirls do not move whereas whale swirls do. Animal cruelty was less a concern for the Navy than was the loss of perfectly good bombs.

Osborn’s 1943 book Dilbert: Just an Accident Figure 6. Carpenter’s plan (dated September 9, 1943) for a Looking for a Place to Happen! was a selection of Dilbert glass-doored exhibition box for displaying Dilbert posters. posters adapted for the new medium. For example, I took this photograph of the original sheet in the Library one poster had a black-and-white line drawing of an of Congress (LOT 8939 G, Box 2). Notice that the pilot in airplane flying erratically over a field (Osborn, n.d.-e). the drawing has a perturbed if not angry expression on his The poster was reprinted in the book, but the field of face, and he is wondering whether he is looking at himself. grass and plane were filled in with shading—in black Presumably, the exhibition box could accommodate a poster and white, not color (Osborn, 1943). Cartoons that with either a landscape or portrait orientation. had one or two colors on the posters were completely black and white in the book. In at least one case, the the posters needed to stand on their own, whereas the words written on a cartoon were removed. Facing pages book pages were consumed one page after the other, in the book often featured thematically related cartoons probably in a single sitting. and captions—for example, Dilbert flying badly on one Many single-sentence captions from the posters facing page and a “check-pilot” looking angry on the became clauses in sentences that extended across two or other (Osborn, 1943). more pages in the book. For example, on the recto side More interesting, the captions were adapted, some of one page, there was a drawing of two planes colliding heavily. Whereas they were written in past tense on the on the runway. The caption read, “To begin with, he posters, they were written in present tense on the book taxis too fast” (no terminal punctuation). On the verso pages, giving the drawings in the book an immediacy side of the same page (requiring a page turn), there was that was lacking in the posters. Whereas Dilbert was a drawing of a plane being upended. The caption read, mentioned by name in almost every poster, in the “Or stops too quickly” (Osborn, 1943). The poster book his name was often replaced by a pronoun or a version of the latter read, “Dilbert found you could stop rhetorical ellipsis. The reason for this change was that quite quickly with brakes!” (Osborn, n.d.-d).

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The biggest change from poster to book was the Table 1. List of Sense Manuals target audience. As stated at the beginning of the book, 1943 1950 “Since all pilots throughout the years have stumbled upon the same difficulties, it is reasonable to believe that Fuel Saving Sense High Altitude Sense there is a little bit of Dilbert in all flyers, whether they “G” Sense Night Vision Sense Arctic Sense be Army, Navy, or civilian” (Osborn, 1943). Dilbert was 1951 Manners Sense still clearly in the Navy, and there were military references Flat-Hatting Sense Shoot Seat Sense in the captions, but the selection and presentation of the Patrol Sense Electrical Sense cartoons were noticeably less military. The lessons about Prisoner Sense Discipline Sense flying were applicable to civilian pilots as well as military Parachute Sense Public Relations Sense pilots. This was where adaptation began to grade into Oxygen Sense 1952 extension as it attempted to draw in a new audience. Gunnery Sense Air Controller Sense Whereas Osborn’s book was a collection of cartoon Dunking Sense Jet Cruise Control Sense drawings with captions, Frederick M. Reeder’s Safe for Aleutian Sense 1953 Solo: What Every Young Aviator Should Know (1947) Air Information Sense was a book about flying, with illustrations featuring UHF Sense 1944 Dilbert. The reference to “Every Young Aviator” in the 1954 book’s subtitle suggested a juvenile audience, perhaps Shark Sense GCA Sense teenagers. Rear Admiral Reeder must have felt that Pilot Error Sense Helicopter Rescue Sense Osborn’s Dilbert drawings would make his book Recognition and Identification Sense Instrument Flying Sense appealing to young readers interested in aviation, so he Shipboard Training Sense enlisted Osborn as illustrator. Carrier Sense Gunnery Sense 1955 Training Manuals Taxi Sense Night Flying Sense Security Sense Osborn was part of a technical communication dream Swept and Delta team—an elite unit of writers, artists, journalists, 1945 Wing Sense educators, and advertising professionals at Navy Night Fighter Sense 1956 headquarters in Washington, D.C. This group included Radio Discipline Sense Weekend Warrior Sense the following individuals, among others: Support Aircraft Sense • Robert Lewis Taylor (1912–1998), at the time Rescue Sense 1958 a writer for the New Yorker but later the Pulitzer Ditching Sense Prize–winning author of The Travels of Jaimie 1947 Bail-Out and McPheeters (1958) Ejection Sense Jet Sense • Lawrence Watkin (1901–1981), an English Compressibility Sense 1959 professor and author of On Borrowed Time (1937) Instrument Sense Flight Simulator Sense and later a Disney scriptwriter • regional writer Roark Bradford (1896–1948), the 1948 1960 author of Ol’ Man Adam and his Chillun (1928) Carrier Cold Starting Sense Collision Sense • another regional writer, Jesse Stuart (1906-1984), Carrier Cold Weather 1961 Flying Sense the author of Taps for Private Tussie (1943) and, Recognition Sense later, the poet laureate of Kentucky 1949 Flying Fitness Sense • the great American photographer Edward Steichen Vertigo Sense Slow Flight Sense (1879–1973) • two more academics: Russell I. Thackrey (1904– • Hannibal Coons (1909–1977), a writer for Collier’s 1990), a journalism professor at Kansas State and later scriptwriter for television series such a University, and George H. Foster (1912–1959), Dennis the Menace and The Addams Family an English instructor (and later professor) at • Donald Keyhoe (1897–1988), a pulp-fiction writer Washington and Lee University and later (in)famous ufologist

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Assembled by Navy officers Arthur Radford and The 14-minute training film opened on a full- Harold “Min” Miller, this unit worked on a variety of length poster of Dilbert. Through a special effect of projects, but one of their most significant achievements the camera, Osborn’s cartoon character turned into was the so-called sense manuals (“Sense,” 1954). the actor Hall, as if he was materializing out of the The sense manuals were a series of topic-specific poster. In Figure 7, Hall is shown in front of the poster training manuals, written in a lively manner with plenty shortly after his appearance. Hall dissolved back into of humor and cartoon illustrations. Table 1 presents a list the cartoon character at the end of the film. of the manuals in this Navy series. Dilbert was invoked Like the Dilbert in posters, this live-action version by name in many (but not all) of the sense manuals—for of the character was a representation of many pilots example, three times in Fuel Saving Sense (1943), 13 in the Navy. After proclaiming that he could look like times in Jet Sense (1947), nine times in High Altitude anyone, Dilbert bragged, “That’s how I can get away Sense (1950), twice in Helicopter Rescue Sense (1954), with so much. No one can recognize me until it’s too and three times in Bail-Out and Ejection Sense (1958). late.” No one could find him, either, because he moved Even when his name was not mentioned, though, he around, surfacing first in Alaska, next in Guadalcanal, was recognizable in many of the illustrations. And he and finally on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. played a larger role in some of the manuals than in The narrator asked, “When are you Dilberts going others. For example, Watkin and Osborn teamed up on to get wise to yourselves?” Night Fighter Sense, or Who Killed the Japanese Sandman? Dilbert defended himself as an entertaining (1945), a manual about flying and engaging the enemy character: “What do you mean? We’re good for a at night. It was written as “an English whodunit” with lot of laughs, ain’t we? We panic ‘em. We’re a very Dilbert as one of the characters (Watkin, 2018, p. 223). funny character.” As a recurring figure in the sense manuals, Dilbert But the narrator would have none of it: “Sure, continued flying for the Navy throughout the 1950s and when you’re on a poster, but when you’re in the air, into the 1960s. Most of the sense manuals published you’re just about as funny as a blast from a Jap zero.” after World War II were illustrated by Osborn and This exchange amounted to a rejection of the written by English Professor George Foster who, like humor of the posters, in which Dilbert was often Watkin, was at one time a scriptwriter for Disney. In addition to the sense manuals, Dilbert appeared in at least one other training manual: Swimming (1944), a volume in the Naval Aviation Physical Training series about sports, such as boxing, football, and soccer. The swimming volume included a section of 22 Dilbert posters on the theme of swimming. There is no direct relationship between the posters and the manual other than the topic of swimming (U.S. Navy, 1944). Training Films Not long after the posters started appearing, the Navy produced a training film featuring Dilbert:Don’t Kill Your Friends (Bureau of Aeronautics, 1943). Huntz Figure 7. Huntz Hall as Dilbert in my screen capture of a Hall, one of the original Dead End Kids, played frame from the Navy training filmDon’t Kill Your Friends Dilbert. Hall had moved from the Broadway play Dead (1943). Hall was already famous as the goofy member of the End (1935) into a successful string of films, including Dead End Kids, stars of the Broadway hit Dead End (1935) and Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Hell’s Kitchen later feature films such asDead End (1937) and Crime School (1939). Hall had played characters with names such as (1938). Hall was chosen to star in this training film because of Goofy, Dippy, and Pig. By association, these characters his comic performances as a likeable but dippy troublemak- reinforced Dilbert’s reputation as a misfit, but it also er. (The Dead Ends Kids evolved into the Bowery Boys, and gave him an air of criminal delinquency. Hall is now remembered mainly as Bowery Boy “Sach.”)

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funny and sympathetic. In the role of a U.S. Navy come to grief thereby than by watching one of the pilot, he had heroic potential, even though he experts do it right” (Warner & Osborn, 1946, p. 46). displayed unheroic qualities and actions. He was, in This statement summed up nicely Dilbert’s function in other words, an antihero. In the film, however, he was the Navy’s safety literature. despicable rather than funny. The narrator did not The typical installment of the column consisted of want to reform him; he wanted to eradicate him. a full-page Dilbert poster (sometimes new, other times Dilbert was featured in the four negative examples recycled from Navy days) and several narrative vignettes that punctuated this otherwise serious training film for of mishaps with commentary and smaller illustrations pilots. In the first negative example, he was told not to (some of Dilbert). Dilbert was now a civilian pilot, charge the plane’s guns over a populated area, but he albeit prone to some of the same mistakes and antics as wondered what would happen if he did, and so he did in his Navy days. He was shown in a wide selection of it anyway. A dummy cartridge fell from the plane and outfits, hats, and civilian activities, although flying was killed a young woman on a sidewalk. There was no still his primary pastime. The Dilbert column ran in humor in this tragedy. Skyways until September 1952, when Osborn teamed In the second negative example, Dilbert flew up with a different writer, Jerome Lederer, on a new into another plane and killed that pilot as well as column, “Performance Pitfalls,” also about flight safety himself. He was resurrected for a third negative but without Dilbert. example in which he parked his plane improperly, At least one civilian newspaper—the Southwest and members of the ground crew were killed by Times of Pulaski, Virginia—imitated Warner and accidental gun fire from the plane. The narrator Osborn’s Dilbert column with its own Dilbert column. described this accident as “cold blooded murder.” Called “Flying with Dilbert,” the column was written In the fourth and final example, a streaming target by Walt Viohl, first under the pseudonym “Dilbert” on Dilbert’s plane decapitated a man on the ground and later under his own name (Dilbert, 1950; Viohl, when Dilbert was landing the plane. The visuals 1950). Each installment offered “true accounts of what of these deaths were graphic and gruesome, and can happen (and in these cases did happen) when you Dilbert’s behavior was wholly unsympathetic—not don’t take time for pre-flight briefing of your airplane, merely antiheroic, but almost evil. The narrator yourself, the weather, and fail to file a plan of flight” actually described Dilbert as a “villain.” (Viohl, 1950, p. 4). Viohl’s initial use of the “Dilbert” As far as I know, Don’t Kill Your Friends was the byline conflated the error-prone amateur pilot with the only training film featuring Dilbert, but there were safety-conscious expert pilot in a self-deprecating joke. several animated training films featuring Grampaw Meanwhile, for decades, Osborn continued to Pettibone. In each of these animated shorts, which illustrate the Grampaw Pettibone column for Naval had the common title Gripes, Pettibone narrated Aviation News. Pettibone first appeared in the January several accidents, commenting on what went wrong 15, 1943, issue of what was originally a newsletter. He in each case and how it could have been avoided. was introduced as “an old-timer” who flew in the early The pilots were referred to as “the lame brain,” “the days of airplanes, and, with his beard and cane, he pinball,” and “the show-off” rather than “Dilbert.” bore a striking resemblance to Rip Van Winkle (U.S. (U.S. Navy, c. 1945). Navy, 1943, p. 2). Pettibone was the older, wiser pilot who provided advice and instruction to cadets and Magazine Columns others by commenting on actual accidents. Dilbert was Starting in mid-1946, Osborn and Seth Warner, a Pettibone’s “scapegoat” for all inexperienced, careless, retired Navy pilot, collaborated on a monthly Dilbert and thrill-seeking pilots (Sorrells, 1957, p. 234). column for the commercial magazine, Skyways. The A representative installment of the Pettibone cover of the July 1946 issue announced that Dilbert column can be found in the April 1955 issue of Naval was now “Exclusive with Skyways.” Warner wrote, Aviation News, by then a full-fledged magazine. The “This is the ‘Kick-in-the-pants Department’ and will installment consisted of a staff-written story of an operate on the psychological principal [sic] that you accident and two letters relating a mishap and a close learn more from seeing someone make a mistake and call, respectively. The story was accompanied by four

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Edward A. Malone illustrations—three of Dilbert and one of Pettibone— Pettibone remains a fixture ofNaval Aviation News whereas the two letters had one Dilbert illustration (Newman, 2019). each. Pettibone commented substantially on all three At an early date, the Navy recognized the value of incidents. The letters, in particular, illustrated the the Pettibone character and real incident reports in its collaborative nature of the column and the way the ongoing safety campaign among aviators. In a survey Dilbert myth was perpetuated and extended. conducted in 1948, Navy pilots credited Pettibone Written by someone identified simply as CDR USN, as contributing more to their safety than Dilbert the first letter began with a testament to the “tale’s” had: “Although Dilbert cartoons…were valued by authenticity: “The official record will no doubt confirm the squadron commanders, pilots did not think they the accuracy of my tale but, just in case it lacks a moral, contributed too much to safety” (Thorndike, 1951, p. what do you make of this version?” (Parsons & Osborn, 123; see also Korchin & Patterson, 1949, pp. 24–28, 1955, p. 7). The rest of the letter used Dilbert as a 47–50). The young pilots may not have liked seeing character but added a fictional relative, Filbert, a cousin themselves in the character of bungling Dilbert; they of Dilbert’s. The two aviators—Dilbert, masquerading as may have felt less threatened by a retired, experienced, a commander, and Filbert—walked up to a plane from and funny (albeit grumpy) pilot such as Pettibone. The behind and climbed in without first doing a walkaround squadron commanders, on the other hand, may have inspection of the plane. They did not notice that a fire enjoyed thinking about the recruits as Dilberts. bottle (i.e., an extinguisher) had been left in front of the The formula of having an expert pilot commenting plane, and the bottle got caught in the propeller when on the mistakes of inexperienced pilots was imitated they were taxiing on the runway. After jumping out of by another Navy magazine, Approach, which turned the plane and discovering what they had done, they ran the successful Anymouse program into a safety column off into the woods. The consequences of their haste and for pilots. After World War II, pilot Trygve Holl carelessness became another lesson for all pilots. (1918–2008) had devised a program whereby pilots The letter was illustrated with a cartoon of two could file anonymous (hence, “anymouse”) reports of naval aviators hurrying toward their plane—obviously, close calls and accidents (“Pilots Reveal,” 1951). The Dilbert and Filbert. The former was wearing an officer’s reporting form even sported a mouse’s head wearing uniform and saying, “We are too hurried to walk a pilot’s cap. The long-running column inApproach around the plane!” The latter was following closely featured anonymous letters by “Anymouse” and replies behind, saying, “We’re real busy!” The illustrator was by “Headmouse” as well as illustrations of both (see, presumably Osborn (Parsons & Osborn, 1955, p. 7). for example, “Man Overboard,” 1963). In his response, Pettibone joked about leaving fire bottles in front of a plane with “Dilbert on the loose.” Training Device and Drill More significant, though, was that he added to the In 1943, engineer Wilfred Kaneb invented a training letter-writer’s narrative: “Incidentally, we heard that Dil device that he called the Underwater Cockpit Escape stumbled into a gas pit and broke his nose while fleeing Device (“Birth,” 2013). Used in cockpit escape drills, the scene of the crime” (Parsons & Osborn, 1955, p. 7). the device was soon christened the “Dilbert Dunker.” This story of an actual accident was retold and It consisted of a “complete cockpit…mounted on twin analyzed by three people: through the letter of one rails 25 feet long and set at a 45-degree angle at an person (a letter writer appropriating the Dilbert end of the station swimming pool” (“Crashes,” 1945). character), the illustration of a second person The cockpit would be pulled to the top of the rail; (Osborn), and the response of a third person (probably the trainee would climb in, and the cockpit would be Samuel G. Parsons, one of the thirteen Pettibone released; it would slide down the rail, flipping upside writers who wrote the column from 1943 to the down after hitting the water. The pilot had to remain 2010s). This was the kind of participatory culture that calm and escape quickly from the submerged and sustained and enriched the transmedia story of Dilbert, inverted cockpit. This training exercise was designed Pettibone, and related characters. When Osborn to simulate what happened when a plane failed to take died in the mid-1990s, another artist, Ted Wilbur, off from an aircraft carrier and plunged into the water. took over, and, although Wilbur died in late 2018, Without this training, a pilot might have panicked and

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drowned—and many, in fact, did so before the Dilbert Dunker was invented. During the training exercise involving this device, each trainee became a Dilbert: if not the cause of the crash, at least potentially the cause of his own death underwater (“Rehearsal,” 1951). Only through repetitive training—enacting one crash after another in the role of Dilbert—could a pilot gain the knowledge and skill to survive in such a situation.

Video footage of the Dilbert Dunker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUoLTGQA_jk

Technical Demonstrations During World War II, Dilbert was also a doll used in training. There was more than one of these dolls in circulation at the time. The doll in Figure 8 (now in a museum) was used by an instructor at Saufley Field near Pensacola, Florida, to show cadet pilots how to eject from a cockpit and use a parachute pack. The name tag on the front of the doll’s jacket says “Dilbert.” In the class, the instructor probably shared anecdotes of pilots’ mistakes. Figure 8. Dilbert doll used in technical demonstrations. I took As he explained what you should do when bailing out this photograph at the MAPS Air Museum in North Canton, of your plane, each student would become a vicarious Ohio. The few surviving Dilbert dolls are reminders of the Dilbert. The pilot’s responsibility was to complete the extensive use of Dilbert in the training, entertaining, and mission and bring the plane back in one piece. Failing shaming of Navy pilots. This prop became obsolete as aircraft that, he had to be able to save himself. If he needed to evolved and cockpits and equipment changed (Griffin, 2019). bail out, there was a good chance he had done something wrong—in other words, that he had been a Dilbert. Nevada, and California to towns in Idaho and Montana. Prizes were awarded for various accomplishments, such Rituals as the pilot who had flown from the farthest place. On The Dilbert story was used in Navy shaming rituals. rare occasions, a Dilbert prize was awarded to “a pilot for At more than one station, the pilot who had made foolishness” (Arentz, 1949, p. 59). the worst mistake of the day was given “a ‘Dilbert for In each of these rituals, the careless, mischievous, or today’ placard either to be put around his neck, like the unlucky pilot created his or her own story—not a fatal Congressional Medal, or at his place at the mess table” accident, but an incident—and in doing so temporarily (Goodman, 1944, p. 55). At Corry Field in Florida, became Dilbert. The placard, effigy, or prize served as an effigy of Dilbert was used to shame pilots for their a reminder of the story, which was probably recounted mistakes: “Whenever a boner is pulled, resulting in many times as members of the class or squadron asked damage of an aircraft, ‘Dilbert’ is adorned with an what happened and learned the details. appropriate sign and left dangling in the hangar for all students to see.” One such sign read, “I pulled my wheels Nose Art (on a plane’s fuselage) up while taxiing out to take off” (“Training,” 1949). A form of folk art, nose art has long been a means of In the late 1940s, a group of amateur civilian pilots individualizing aircraft, including military aircraft. routinely made weekend breakfast flights from Utah, Many World War II planes had text and images painted

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Edward A. Malone on their bodies, especially near the front end (or nose). (Biehl, 1949, p. 9). What followed was an account of an The text (e.g., a name) and visual (e.g., a cartoon) accident in 22 lines of verse. The Dilbert in this poem might be patriotic (Liberty Bell, War Eagle), vulgar/ was college educated and claimed to have memorized erotic (Lak-a-Nookie, Take Off Time, Shakes All his checkoff list, so he did not check the list before Over), nostalgic for home (Georgia Peach, Memphis takeoff, and the resulting mistakes were tragic. Written Belle, Arkansas Traveler) or family (Enola Gay, KreJan, 32 years later, “Dilbert at the Bounce” was a 12-stanza Punkins), boastful (Tough Boy, Ruff Stuff, Potent poem about an arrogant pilot who flamed out (Butler, Cock), threatening (Avenging Angel, Tojo’s Nitemare, 1981). The jargon in the poem made the poem all but Grim Reaper), erudite (Nulli Secundus, Upupa Epops, inaccessible to the lay reader. The poem, however, was Hippomenes), or superstitious (Royal Flush, Talisman, generously illustrated with cartoons over a two-page Lucky Bat) (Taylan, 2019). Nose art was subversive spread, suggesting that even pilots with considerable because it was not officially sanctioned, although it was technical knowledge enjoyed their funnies. widely permitted. In the late 1940s, Osborn and Foster (the One Navy plane in World War II sported a cartoon Washington and Lee University professor) co-authored drawing of Dilbert under the name “Demon Dilbert.” a short story about Dilbert for Ford Times, a magazine Figure 9 shows the crew of this plane, probably a published by the automobile company. The story was Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator at Carney Field, told in the form of a letter from Dilbert to his friend Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, in 1943. The nose art Clovis. Dilbert was now attending college, presumably in this case was doubly subversive because it expressed on the G.I. Bill, and he had a car, a California Special humorous contempt for Navy training and safety by with a fox tail, which he drove as recklessly as he had flaunting the epitome of pilot recklessness. At the same flown his plane in the Navy. A dean at his college time, the pilot and/or crew were attempting to insert insisted that he take a safe-driving class at the local high themselves into the mythos of the famous Dilbert with school, so he went to the class and unwittingly made his penchant for mischief. a fool of himself while a state trooper was talking to the class about safe driving. On the way home, Dilbert was taken hostage in his car by a criminal, but his bad driving caused the aforementioned state trooper to pull him over, and, in his panic, Dilbert accidentally helped disarm the criminal, thereby becoming a hero in the town and on campus (Osborn & Foster, 1947). This is Dilbert the antihero, not the villain. In the 1950s, an instructor at the Naval Air Station in San Diego wrote Dilbert plays to teach students. Each play was “usually built around some Dilbert who does everything wrong, violates regulations and suffers Figure 9. “Demon Dilbert” nose art on a plane in World War the consequences, as opposed to other characters who II. These photographs are part of a collection of World War II attempt to guide him” (“Plays,” 1952, p. 23). I do not photographs in the San Diego Air and Space Museum (“VB- know whether the focal character in these plays was 102,” 1944). actually called Dilbert, but it is likely that he was in some of the plays. A student would assume the central Dilbert Other Media and Genres role and become the negative example for the class. Over the years, Dilbert was the topic of poems, at least One remarkable creation in the Dilbert myth was one short story, and amateur plays. Two poems written an aviation safety display with moving parts (Figure 10). by readers of Navy magazines are good examples of The display featured statistics for 1957 on the left-hand the poems. Published in the late 1940s, “The Sad, Sad side and photographs of accidents (the “Cost”) on the Story of Dilbert” began with a declaration of Dilbert’s right-hand side. In the middle was a cloud-shaped area for multiplicity: “You know a Dilbert, and YOU know a moving planes powered by a motor. At the bottom center, Dilbert, / But I know a Dilbert with a special twist” Dilbert looked on while Pettibone whispered advice

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into his ear. The advice in the dialogue balloon could be actors, and film crews. Those in the military who changed as often as needed. This 3-D display connected had experience in journalism, advertising, creative Pettibone’s nuggets of advice with the bigger picture of writing, teaching, or the fine arts were called upon annual flight hours, accident rate, and cost in human life to produce print media. Graduate engineers helped and expensive equipment (Mazza, 1957). to produce training devices. For example, Naval Reserve Officer Luis de Florez, who had a degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and was part of the same training division as Osborn, founded the Special Devices Section (later a separate Division), which produced hundreds of synthetic training devices during the war (Dawson, 2005). Visual technical communication reached new heights during World War II as the different branches of the U.S. military and the different militaries of allied and axis forces experimented with all available types of media. These militaries had to educate young soldiers and sailors with short attention spans, if not low literacy levels, and visual media such as films, posters, and comics were better received than traditional Figure 10. 3-D safety aviation display featuring Dilbert and textbooks and technical manuals. The U.S. Navy Grampaw Pettibone. Developed by personnel at the Naval Air produced and disseminated its own posters, magazines, Station in New Orleans, this display included moving planes manuals (with cartoon illustrations), films, and training and a dialogue balloon that could be changed daily. This devices, such as the Dilbert Dunker and the Dilbert photograph appeared with an article in the Navy’s Approach doll. In some ways, the Dilbert doll anticipated the magazine (Mazza, 1957). action figures of contemporary media franchises. The Dilbert stories (each poster, each accident Radical Intertextuality and report, each drill on the Dunker) comprised a course in Additive Comprehension pilot training. The course used each audience member’s ability, if not desire, to compile and connect discrete In transmedia storytelling, the different texts must be lessons (never all of them) into a comprehensive extensively interconnected (radical intertexuality) across understanding of safe flying practices. New stories multiple media (multimodality) for the purpose of (whether broaching new themes or subtle variations enlarging and deepening the audience’s understanding on old themes) were authored unwittingly by pilots in of the story (additive comprehension). In this section, accidents and close calls and were related firsthand or I discuss the ways in which radical intertextuality secondhand to other pilots. This form of storytelling was fostered additive comprehension in the Dilbert myth. heavily dependent on the vagaries of weather, mechanical To explicate the myth, I also use other concepts that failure, and human error. It was not possible to control Jenkins (2007, 2011) associated with transmedia the development and structure of the myth because it storytelling, including adaptation vs. extension; was being built by accretion and sometimes serendipity chunking, seriality, and dispersal; the “encyclopedic as more and more incidents occurred and the technology impulse” of audiences; interactivity vs. participation; evolved. There were more safety lessons than any one and continuity vs. multiplicity. pilot could absorb, but the hope was that enough pilots With its enormous resources and diverse activities, would absorb enough lessons to reduce accidents and the military functioned like a media conglomerate therefore casualties and loss of aircraft. during and after World War II. The military pressed The larger Dilbert myth was comprised of many Hollywood into its service, and most of the propaganda narratives of specific types of errors (on the posters), and training films were created by the movie studios actual incidents (in the magazine columns), and and/or their producers, scriptwriters, directors, personal experiences in training in the Dunker. These

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Edward A. Malone narrative chunks were self-contained (i.e., they could perform the drill; the instructor might allude to one be understood and were useful on their own) as well cadet’s performance in critiquing that of another; the as connected to other chunks (i.e., in something like cadets would be influenced by their observations of a refresher course in aviation safety). Not only were the drills as well as the instructions they had been they spread across different media, but they were often given and their own experiences in the Dunker. Thus, serialized—for example, in themed and numbered although each ride was structurally the same (climb in, series of posters, monthly installments of magazine slide down, flip over, and escape), the escapes varied in columns, and repetition of drills and rituals. time and execution with occasional complications. There was considerable intertextuality within Some adaptations sought to extend the audiences the same medium—for example, within posters or for the posters. Pilots in the British Royal Air Force manuals. In the posters, Osborn developed themes told Osborn (1982) that, “during the North African (pilot error, swimming, submarine warfare, etc.), campaign against Rommel, the English found batches brought together characters (e.g., Dilbert and Spoiler of our Dilbert posters at the captured German airfields, in later posters), and repeated details (such as referring reprinted in Germany and recaptioned in German” to Dilbert’s “cousins”). Not only did the drawings have (p. 81). The termrecaptioned suggests that different a similar artistic style that distinguished them visually captions were used (perhaps to ridicule the Americans as part of a common set—the work of a single artist— or to localize the humor, geography, and other details). but the representations of landscapes (or seascapes) Or it may have been the case that the English captions and technology (planes, ships, etc.) were sometimes were merely translated into German. the same. And some gags were used more than once— Although there might be considerable such as bats in the belfry or cobwebs in the attic or intertextuality within a medium, there was also daydreaming about women. considerable intertextuality among media. The training The sense manuals, too, were all part of the filmDon’t Kill Your Friends (1943) is a good example. same documentation set and had many textual and It began and ended with a Dilbert poster—a full- visual connections. All the manuals included the body drawing of Dilbert in profile. A group of Navy word “sense” in their titles, had the same general aviators commented on the poster, so did the narrator, format (e.g., size) and appearance, and were written and so did Hall after he materialized out of the poster. in a similar style (informal, humorous). Dilbert was In a serious vein, the film revised the slogan “Don’t recognizable in many of the sense-manual illustrations, Be a Dilbert!” (popularized by the posters) as “Don’t even when he was not identified by name. Each Kill Your Friends” Dilbert was painted as a villain as textual mention of Dilbert tapped into the readers’ accidents were depicted in gory verisimilitude. Hall’s familiarity with the character and the mythology bad boy reputation from the Dead End Kids movies surrounding him. imbued Dilbert with delinquency and criminality. The Dilbert and Pettibone columns used Dilbert Each installment of the Dilbert column in in the same way, exploiting his well-earned reputation Skyways (1946 to 1952) combined a full-page Dilbert as someone who always did the opposite of what he poster (sometimes recycled from the World War II was supposed to do. It was this failing that provided posters), several anecdotes (such as accident narratives) continuity in all the stories about Dilbert even though mixed with commentary, and several smaller cartoon his appearance and circumstances varied. Dilbert illustrations, many of which featured Dilbert. Each embodied multiplicity: a pilot with many faces and full-page drawing tied the column to the earlier many haunts. No matter how many times he died, tradition of posters, but at the same time it had to he always came back (though in somewhat altered relate thematically and didactically to the textual form) to die again. Any cadet or pilot was potentially a content and other illustrations of the installment. Dilbert, whether in an airplane on a mission or during In the Pettibone column, reports of actual training in a simulator, such as the Dunker. accidents were retold as didactic stories, sometimes The Dilbert Dunker created its own form of by the magazine’s staff, other times by readers in intertextuality across the drills on a given day or even their letters to Grampaw Pettibone. To preserve the from day to day. The cadets would watch one another anonymity of the actors and enliven the stories, the

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offending pilot might be referred to as “Dilbert.” correct action. Presumably, the drills in the Dilbert Fictionalizing accident reports in this way turned Dunker saved lives when the cockpit escape had to be specific incidents into illustrations of general lessons. performed in real situations. Donning the Pettibone persona, an expert pilot, such There is some anecdotal evidence that this kind as Seth Warner or Samuel Parsons, would find and of extension occurred. Osborn received reports from convey the lesson in each incident, while Osborn’s pilots and others that they enacted the lessons in illustrations would provide their own commentaries on the posters. Osborn gave the following example: “I the incidents or lessons. recall one flyer, shot down a half mile off a Japanese- The movement into a new medium often extended held island. ‘Enemy soldiers were shooting at me,’ he the Dilbert myth. Whereas posters might sum up an said, ‘and I was about to inflate my life raft when I accident in a single visual and provide criticism in a vividly recalled a poster of Dilbert caught in a similar single-sentence caption, the Skyways and Pettibone situation. The lesson on the poster was: Don’t inflate columns allowed for more detailed, textual accounts the raft and make a bigger target of yourself. I didn’t of accidents, richer critiques of the accidents and their and was eventually rescued’” (as cited in Benjamin, causes, and more visual commentary. The Pettibone 1974, p. 14). column, for example, offered another character’s In one letter to Grampaw Pettibone, the perspective on the accidents. Pettibone’s commentary commanding officer of a squadron reported that one turned Dilbert’s antics into more substantial and of his pilots had tried a solution that he had read about meaningful lessons for pilots. in Pettibone’s column. One of the wheels on his plane Some extensions provided back story but not would not open for landing, so the pilot tried to open many: In high school, Dilbert dated a girl named it by bouncing the other, open wheel on the ground. Ruthie James and had a rival named Larry Platt (the Although this solution did not work, the commanding short story in Ford Times), and he once blew up the officer described the solution that eventually did work. school’s physics lab (High Altitude Sense). We are told a This example illustrates Jenkins’ (2011) observation great deal about what Dilbert never learned, but we are that, in transmedia storytelling, “Participants pool never given the kind of family history that Anthony information and tap each other’s expertise as they work Armstrong gave to Prune in Prune’s Progress: The together to solve problems.” Genealogical Tree of Pilot Officer Percy Prune (1942). In the transmedia universe of the U.S. military Some extensions charted Dilbert’s life after the war. during World War II, there were multiple worlds with Dilbert became a civilian pilot (the Skyways column); their own characters and concerns—for example, naval he went to college and helped to catch a criminal aviation, army air forces aviation, and army ordnance (the short story in Ford Times). In a concurrent maintenance. After the war, the universe that Dilbert line of development (as documented in the sense inhabited expanded to include the worlds of amateur manuals published in the 1950s), Dilbert remained aviation and commercial aviation. Figures 11 and 12 in the military and kept up with the latest aviation show attempts in the late 1950s to acknowledge this technologies, finding ways to misuse them and injure larger universe of aviation safety. himself and others. The multiplicity of the character, Nearly sixty years later, in 2014, a magazine editor who represented many rather than one, militated called for a revival of these characters and compared against the development of an extensive biography. their universe to other, better-known transmedia Some of the Dilbert media, such as the Dunker universes: “we’re finding out comic strip characters are and the doll, were interactive, but participation was far wildly popular and profitable. Marvel has something more important than interaction. A common goal of like two movies a year planned through 2028.…there the posters, advice columns, and training devices was are very many [aviation safety characters] who can be extension by participation. The audience was supposed interwoven and given story lines, and some of these to use the knowledge and skills from the various pre-date Rex Riley by decades. Could Rex Riley be lessons to keep themselves and their aircraft safe. rebooted and redone, along the lines of, say, Captain Through performance, perhaps in a moment of crisis, James T. Kirk and the ‘Star Trek’ universe?” (Jacobs, Dilbert’s negative example should be transformed into 2014, p. 7).

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Figure 11. Party celebrating Anymouse’s 10th anniversary. Trygve A. Holl believed that his fellow Navy pilots would be more likely to share their accidents and close calls if they could do so anonymously. At his suggestion, his squadron created an “Anymouse” form for filing anonymous reports. Each form was illustrated with a drawing of a mouse’s head wearing a pilot’s helmet. Later, Anymouse became the pseudonym of each aviator whose story was featured in Approach, the monthly magazine of the Naval Aviation Safety Center. Both Navy and Air Force safety characters (including Dilbert, Spoiler, and Grampaw Pettibone) attended Anymouse’s 10th anniversary party. The gray strip on the left-hand side of the cartoon replaces part of the cartoon that was lost in the fold of the magazine. Reprinted from the Navy’s magazine Approach (“Happy,” 1957, pp. 4-5). Figure 12. Party celebrating Duncan and Heinz’s 1st anniver- Conclusion sary. Sergeant Lancelot Duncan and Lieutenant Malcolm Heinz, two cartoon characters, made their debut in the Febru- Like the U.K. Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air ary 1958 issue of Aircraft Accident and Maintenance Review. Forces, the U.S. Navy was suffering avoidable losses The personnel behind these personas visited Air Force bases, during the training of pilots and in operational flying: evaluated their transient maintenance and services, and Pilots and their crew were dying and aircraft were being published a list of recommended bases and later awarded destroyed. The Navy found a poster boy in the cartoon certificates to the bases. Notably absent from the anniversary character Dilbert: a negative example of what a pilot party were Osborn’s characters: Dilbert, Spoiler, and Gram- should be. Later, other media were used to extend the paw Pettibone. Reprinted from Aircraft Accident and Mainte- Dilbert myth. No one person planned the direction nance Review (“Birthday,” 1959, p. 13). and scope of this story’s growth. It was a product of exigencies and the participatory culture supporting potential benefits of using this type of storytelling in Navy aviation. Every fledgling and experienced pilot safety education, but it also provides a pre-digital age dreaded the prospect of becoming a Dilbert. Their illustration of transmedia narrative techniques, such accidents and close calls fed the developing story as as adaptation and extension; chunking, seriality, and instructors, commanders, and other experts crafted dispersal; interactivity and participation; and continuity lessons from their mishaps. and multiplicity. These techniques have been used in The Navy’s use of Dilbert is an instructive historical technical communication for at least 80 years, and yet example of the use of transmedia storytelling in transmedia storytelling is only now becoming a topic of technical communication. Not only does it show the research and study in our discipline.

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References Breger, D. (1958). Cartoons in technical manuals. STWE Review, 4(2), 13-14. Retrieved from https:// Adams, S. (1997). Seven years of highly defective people: www.jstor.org/stable/i40199853 Scott Adams’ guided tour of the evolution of Dilbert. Bureau of Aeronautics (Producer). (1943). Don’t Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel. kill your friends [Motion picture]. USA: U.S. Andelman, B. (2005). Joe Dope saves the U.S. Army Navy. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ (from itself). In Will Eisner: A spirited life (pp. 74- watch?v=cU2T793tNqk 89). Milwaukie, OR: M. Press. Butler, C. T. (1981). Dilbert at the bounce. Arentz, B. (1949, August 28). Breakfast fliers. Approach, 27(9), 16-17. Retrieved Salt Lake Tribune [Salt Lake City, UT], p. 59. from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ Retrieved from https://newspaperarchive.com/ pt?id=uiug.30112105168402;view=1up;seq=19 salt-lake-tribune-aug-28-1949-p-59/ Crashes in dunker teach flyers to escape at sea. (1945, Armstrong, A. (1942). Prune’s progress: The genealogical June). Popular Mechanic, p. 16. Retrieved from tree of Pilot-Officer Percy Prune. London: Arandar https://books.google.com/books?id=Pt8DAAAAM Books. BAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=RA1-PA16 Benjamin, D. (1974, June). Top drawer: A NANews Dahl, R. (1943). The gremlins: From the Walt Disney interview. Naval Aviation News, pp. 8-21. Retrieved prowduction. A Royal Air Force story. New York, NY: from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1. Random House. b4263413;view=1up;seq=230 Dawson, P. L. (2005). Luis de Florez and the Bennet, J. (1995). Highest tradition: The history of no Special Devices Division (Unpublished doctoral 2 squadron, RAAF. Canberra, Australia: Australian dissertation). George Washington University, Government Publishing Service. Retrieved from Washington, D.C. http://web.archive.org/web/20190322011916/ Dilbert. (1950, May 1). Flying with Dilbert. http://airpower.airforce.gov.au/APDC/media/PDF- Southwest Times [Pulaski, VA], p. 2. Retrieved Files/Historical%20Publications/HIST04-Highest- from https://newspaperarchive.com/ Traditions-The-History-of-No-2-Squadron-RAAF. pulaski-southwest-times-may-01-1950-p-2/ pdf Dilbert decorated. (1946). Air Sea Rescue Bulletin, Biehl, W. (1949, July). The sad, sad story of 111(4), 44. Retrieved from https://books.google. Dilbert. Naval Aviation News, p. 9. Retrieved com/books?id=ZLJIAQAAIAAJ&lpg=RA5- from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ PA52&ots=VFVHlhBf6n&dq=%22Dilbert%20 pt?id=osu.32435030159610;view=1up;seq=665 decorated%22&pg=RA9-PA44 Birdwell, M. (2005). Technical fairy first class? Is Fanthorpe, U. A. (1997). Pilot Officer Prune’s Progress this any way to run an army? Private Snafu and (for David, whose copy it was anyway). Children’s World War II. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Literature in Education, 28(1), 11-17. doi: Television, 25(2), 203-212. 10.1023/A:1025072113907 The birth of the Dilbert Dunker. (2013, September 6). Fleming, L. (2013). Expanding learning opportunities Retrieved from Naval Aviation Museum: https:// with transmedia practices: Inanimate Alice as an web.archive.org/web/20190224125816/https:// exemplar. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 5(2), www.navalaviationmuseum.org/history-up-close/ 370-377. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons. objects-of-history/birth-dilbert-dunker/ uri.edu/jmle/vol5/iss2/3 Birthday party. (1959, February). Aircraft Accident Goodman, J. B. (1944). Dilbert, USN. Flying, 35(2), and Maintenance Review, 14, 13-15. Retrieved 55, 130, 132. Retrieved from https://web.archive. from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ org/web/20190427040902/https://books.google. pt?id=osu.32435062861422&view=1up&seq=54 com/books?id=IObo37IFIXUC&pg=PA55 Breger, D. (1945). The birth of “G. I. Joe.” In “G. I. Joe” (“Private Breger”) from the pages of Yank and Stars and Stripes (p. iii). Garden City, NY: Blue Ribbon Books.

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Griffin, D. (2019). Sold WWII naval aviation “Dilbert” Jordanoff, A. (1938). Through the overcast: The weather pilot training set [Advertisement]. Retrieved from and the art of instrument flying. New York, NY: https://web.archive.org/web/20190428051129/ Funk & Wagnalls. Retrieved from https://catalog. http://griffinmilitaria.com/cgi-bin/imcart/display. hathitrust.org/Record/001040413 cgi?item_id=23192 Korchin, B., & Patterson, J.N. (1949, March). Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. (1956). Evaluation of Naval flight safety media. Washington, Dilbert never had it this good [Advertisement]. D.C.: National Research Council Committee on Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ Aviation Psychology. web/20190706073813/https://i.ebayimg.com/ Man overboard! (1963). Approach, 8(9), 22- images/g/JGEAAOSwYIxX75D1/s-l1600.jpg 23. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ Hadaway, S. (2006). A brief history of flight safety web/20190502090239/https://books.google.com/ literature. Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal, books?id=57omAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA8-PA22 37, 56-65. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ Mason, A. (2018, June 25). Life and death in web/20190517073126/https://www.rafmuseum. bomber command. Retrieved from Imperial org.uk/documents/Research/RAF-Historical- War Museum: https://web.archive.org/ Society-Journals/Journal-37-Seminar-Flight%20 web/20190516043608/https://www.iwm.org.uk/ Safety.pdf history/life-and-death-in-bomber-command Hamilton, T. (1991). The life and times of Pilot Officer Mazza, J. C. (1957). Safety is basic. Approach, 2(12), Prune, being the official story ofTee Emm. London: 2-3. Retrieved from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ HMSO. pt?id=uc1.b2865690;view=1up;seq=542 Happy anniversary Anymouse! (1957). Approach, Mireles, A. J. (2006). Introduction. In Fatal Army Air 3(3), 4-17. Retrieved from https://babel. Forces aviation accidents in the United States, 1941- hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024193735& 1945. Volume 1: Introduction, January 1941-June view=1up&seq=106 1943 (pp. ix-xi). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum. (2019). Don’t be Newman, J. (2019). Grampaw Pettibone: In a Dilbert: U.S. Navy safety posters [Information memorium [sic] Ted Wilbur. Naval Aviation News, on a page]. Retrieved from https://web.archive. 101(1): 7. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ org/web/20190719044202/https://www. web/20190502002905/https://navalaviationnews. intrepidmuseum.org/The-Intrepid-Experience/ navylive.dodlive.mil/files/2019/02/NAN- Past-Exhibitions/Dilbert Winter2019.pdf Jacobs, G. (2014). The Norton Flyer editor’s No. 13 Group. (1940). Forget-me-nots for fighters. notes. Norton Flyer, 1(3), 7-8. Retrieved from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Andrew Reid. Norton Air Force Base Museum: http://www. Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-a). [Dilbert poster] 211. nafbmuseum.org/app/download/7116489714/ Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ Norton+Flyer+Summer+Edition.pdf web/20190424004207/http://www.askacfi.com/ Jenkins, H. (2007, March 21). Transmedia storytelling wp-content/uploads/2009/08/211.jpg 101 [Blog post]. Retrieved from Confessions Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-b). [Dilbert poster] 410. of an ACA Fan: https://web.archive.org/ Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ web/20190505092202/http://henryjenkins.org/ web/20190424005730/http://www.askacfi.com/ blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html wp-content/uploads/2009/08/410.jpg Jenkins, H. (2011, July 31). Transmedia 202: Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-c). [Dilbert poster] 445. Further reflections [Blog post]. Retrieved from Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ Confessions of an ACA Fan: https://web.archive.org/ web/20190424003105/http://www.askacfi.com/ web/20190505092230/http://henryjenkins.org/ wp-content/uploads/2009/08/445.jpg blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-d). [Dilbert poster] 9. Joe Dope. (1944). Air Force Magazine, 27(2), 28-29. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ Retrieved from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ web/20160318211015/http://www.askacfi.com/ pt?id=osu.32435027300995;view=1up;seq=106 wp-content/uploads/2009/08/9.jpg

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Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-e). [Dilbert poster] 27. Retrieved from https://newspaperarchive.com/ Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ independent-record-may-11-1951-p-8/ web/20160318212208/http://www.askacfi.com/ Romero, D. (1945, June). The man who sees things. wp-content/uploads/2009/08/27.jpg Mechanix Illustrated, pp. 67-76, 150. Retrieved Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-f). [Dilbert poster] 635. from Modern Mechanix: Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today: Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170107171826/ web/20190516034930/http://www.shipleybay.com/ http://blog.modernmechanix.com/ archives/Dilbert/Dilbert_R90/635.jpg the-man-who-sees-things/ Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-g). [Dilbert poster] 857. Sense. (1954, September). Naval Aviation News, pp. 19- Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ 21. Retrieved from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ web/20190516035037/http://www.shipleybay.com/ pt?id=uc1.b2865494;view=1up;seq=351 archives/Dilbert/Dilbert_R90/857.jpg Sorrells, A. R. (1957, July 14). Who’s this Osborn, R. C. (n.d.-h). [Dilbert poster] 75. guy Pettibone. Independent Press Telegram Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/ [Long Beach, CA], p. 234. Retrieved web/20160319040826/http://www.askacfi.com/ from https://newspaperarchive.com/ wp-content/uploads/2009/08/75.jpg independent-press-telegram-jul-14-1957-p-234/ Osborn, R. C. (1943). Dilbert: An accident looking for a Speaking of pictures … Cartoons show air cadets place to happen! New York: Coward-McCann. mistakes. (1942, May 25). Life, pp. 9-11. Osborn, R. C. (1982). Osborn on Osborn. New Haven, Retrieved from https://books.google.com/ CT: Ticknor & Fields. books?id=J1AEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9 Osborn, R. C., & Foster, G. (1947). Dilbert gets his Taylan, J. (2019). Aircraft: List by manufacturer and man. Ford Times, 39(6), 39-45. type [Information on a page]. Retrieved from Parsons, S. G., & Osborn, R. C. (1955, April). https://web.archive.org/web/20190705212747/ Grampaw Pettibone. Naval Aviation News, pp. 6-7. https://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/ Retrieved from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ Thorndike, R. L. (1951, February). The human pt?id=osu.32435062860127&view=1up&seq=130 factor in accidents with special reference to Pierce, M. R. (2013). Earning their wings: Accidents and aircraft accidents. Randolph Field, TX: USAF fatalities in the United States Army Air Forces during School of Aviation Medicine. Retrieved flight training in World War Two (Unpublished from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ doctoral dissertation). Kansas State University, pt?id=mdp.39015074017396;view=1up;seq=135 Manhattan, KS. Retrieved from https://web. Training unit hangs culprit: “Dilbert” dummy archive.org/web/20190712224216/https://krex.k- reminds dopeoffs. (1949, November). state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/16879/ Naval Aviation News, p. 17. Retrieved MarlynPierce2013.pdf from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ Pilots reveal secret souls: “Anymouse” report brings pt?id=osu.32435030159610&view=1up&seq=817 good results. (1951, July). Naval Aviation News, U.S. Navy. (1943, January 15). [Untitled article about p. 27. Retrieved from https://babel.hathitrust.org/ P. S. Pettibone.] News Letter, Bureau of Aeronautics, cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d000427635&view=1up&s Navy Department, no. 186, p. 2. Retrieved from eq=693 https://web.archive.org/web/20190427042459/ Plays are used in training. (1952, July). Naval Aviation http://www.paperlessarchives.com/WWIINAN3. News, p. 23. Retrieved from https://babel. jpg hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d000427643;vi U.S. Navy. (1944). Swimming. Annapolis, ew=1up;seq=247 MD: Naval Institute. Retrieved from Reeder, F. M. (1947). Safe for solo: What every young https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1. aviator should know. New York: Harper & Brothers. b000720628&view=1up&seq=245 Rehearsal for a crash. (1951, May 11). Helena U.S. Navy. (c. 1945). Grampaw Pettibone’s gripes. USA: Independent Record [Helena, MT], p. 8. Ohio Films. Retrieved from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=KnftbTzADPQ

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U.S. War Department. (1944, May 31). II-ton payload, Wheeler, H. A. (1986, January-February). Grampaw 15-ton gross, 2-wheel (2dt), van semitrailer (Omaha Pettibone Trophy: In memory of Captain Standard Body Corp. model F16) (TM 9-894 Seth Warner. Naval Aviation News, pp. 4-7. War Department Technical Manual). Retrieved Retrieved from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1. pt?id=uiug.30112075630464;view=1up;seq=6 b3243778;view=1up;seq=5 VB-102 first tour_000199 [Photograph]. (1944). About the Author Retrieved from San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives: http://web.archive.org/save/https://www. Edward A. Malone is Professor of Technical flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/9045679902 Communication, and one of the founders and the VB-102 First Tour_000389 [Photograph]. (1944). first director of Technical Communication Programs Retrieved from San Diego Air and Space at Missouri University of Science and Technology Museum Archives: http://web.archive.org/ (Missouri S&T). He has published articles in IEEE web/20190712223841/https://www.flickr.com/ Transactions on Professional Communication, Technical photos/sdasmarchives/9045663670 Communication Quarterly, Journal of Business and Viohl, W. (1950, June 29). Flying with Dilbert. Technical Communication, Journal of Technical Writing Southwest Times [Pulaski, VA], p. 4. Retrieved and Communication, and, of course, STC’s Technical from https://newspaperarchive.com/ Communication. He is the co-author of Technical pulaski-southwest-times-jun-29-1950-p-4/ Editing: An Introduction to Editing in the Workplace, Virginia Military Preservation Association. which will be published in October by Oxford (2018, October 31). Index [of Ordnance University Press. He is also the faculty advisor of the Reproductions]. Retrieved from https://web. Missouri S&T student chapter of STC. You may write archive.org/web/20190517022232/http://vmpa. to him at [email protected]. ordnancereproductions.com/maintenance.htm Warner, S., & Osborn, R. C. (1946, July). Dilbert. Skyways, pp. 46-47, 93. Manuscript received 4 March 2019, revised 4 June 2019; Watkin, L. (2018). Larry Watkin: A memoir of an accepted 5 June 2019. American man of letters. N.p.: Pulp Hero Press.

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 229 Applied Research Next-Gen Résumés: A Case Study of Using Transmedia Storytelling to Create Personal Branding on LinkedIn By Lynn B. McCool

Abstract Purpose: The focus of this article is to examine how professionals may be adapting the once-stable résumé genre to a next-generation (next-gen) iteration of this genre by using multiple media to create and sustain personal branding. Method: Using a qualitative case study methodology, this research examined LinkedIn’s public user profiles. One case study participant was selected, whose profile met the criteria of promoting personal branding via multiple media artifacts, using transmedia storytelling techniques, and networking inside a participatory social media culture. Results: In this case study, the participant, Jacobs, used multimodal composing and transmedia storytelling techniques on LinkedIn’s social media site. Sharing smaller narratives across different media, Jacobs invites participation from his followers as well as responses from him to his followers. Within this participatory culture, his posts often blur personal and professional topics of interest but still remain singularly focused on promoting his personal branding to a wider audience Conclusion: Young professionals are not turning to traditional resources for advice on how to establish personal branding. Instead, they are turning to a networked, social world and using multiple media and transmedia storytelling techniques to attract followers, connect to other professionals, and network with potential employers. Keywords: convergence, participatory culture, transmedia storytelling, résumés, LinkedIn

Practitioner’s • The résumé genre is evolving to • Professional communication Takeaway: address the exigencies of both media instructors (as traditional resources convergence and a participatory of advice on writing résumés) should culture. continue to track the evolving • Technical communicators should conventions of the résumé genre consider using next-gen résumés as a and adapt instruction to meet the long-term strategy to enhance their demands of an always-on, always- employment prospects. connected world.

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Introduction the once-stable résumé genre, appear to be changing (Randazzo, 2016) in response to an “always-on, always- Before the advent of the Internet and Web 2.0 there” digitized world of resources (Bolter & Grusin, technologies, professionals who were seeking new 2003; Jenkins, 2006) that include the affordances of jobs created paper résumés or curricula vitae (CVs) as Web 2.0 cloud computing and social networking, and the primary means of establishing personal branding. the relative ease of access to digital media technologies. While both résumés and CVs employ aspects of Using a case-study approach, I sought to discover personal branding, there are differences between how professionals are sharing résumé content, creating them; for example, résumés tend to be shorter in page personal branding, and making emotional connections length, with concisely written content that summarizes by using social network communication technologies. education, work history, credentials, and skills, thus Furthermore, the approach and tone of this article are providing less space for personal branding. CVs, on the informational rather than critical. That is not to suggest other hand, contain the same content as résumés but that résumé genre conventions are free from nuanced are longer in page length and allow additional space for and multilayered interpretations or applications. personal branding via additional sections on research, Instead, the purpose of this article is to examine teaching experience, publications, grants, fellowships, how professionals may be adapting the once-stable professional associations, licenses, and awards. Based résumé genre to a next-generation (next-gen) iteration upon basic commonalities of résumés and CVs, in this of this genre by using multiple media to create and article, I will refer to both résumés and CVs by using sustain personal branding and display résumé content. the umbrella term résumé. Although résumés and CVs To explore résumé conventions further, I provide are not entirely interchangeable, job seekers will use a contextual understanding of the résumé genre, a one or the other to summarize skills and experience, discussion of theoretical considerations, a description and to present personal branding in order to persuade of methods and results, and an assessment of the potential employers. implications for practitioners. A job seeker’s rationale for including personal branding within a résumé is to create a positive image Résumés in Context in the mind of potential employers (Peters, 1997) via “emotional connections” (Thoms, McMasters, American business discourse has included the résumé Roberts, & Dombkowski, 1999). In paper résumés, genre in its discussion of employment documents for these emotional connections are often made in sections more than a century (Popken, 1999). Historically, titled “Extracurricular Activities” and “Hobbies and the résumé has been a reflection of a predominantly Interests.” Within these spaces, the job seeker hopes to print-on-paper culture, and its conventions have relay personal branding information to demonstrate been influenced by the systematization of business that s/he is a well-rounded individual who has interests communication, which began during the Industrial beyond work and wishes to make an emotional Revolution—mid-18th to mid-19th centuries—and connection with the potential employer’s or hiring then blossomed in the Modernist era—late 19th manager’s own personal interests. However, in the one- to mid-20th centuries (Yates, 2005). Subsequently, dimensional, print-on-paper résumé, these emotional résumé conventions remained relatively stable through connections may be harder to convey and are often most of the 20th century. These conventions typically deemed of less importance than matching the more depersonalized the individual and were characterized by important education and skills sections to a particular a listing of facts in the form of “subjectless sentences” job description (Thoms et al., 1999). that used “stable categories” (such as objective, However, with the arrival of 21st-century experience, education), which were encased in a linear networked communication technologies, job seekers document design that was limited to one to two pages now have additional resources to establish personal (Popken, 1999, pp. 92–93). Thus, the 20th century branding, make emotional connections to, and invite iteration of the résumé genre reflected a modernist participation from a wider audience. As a result, certain approach to communication genres, exemplified by communication practices, and even the conventions of tightly codified conventions, used by organizational

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 231 Applied Research Next-Gen Résumés

managers to determine if workers fit the parameters of the job-seeking professional whom it describes. Stories the advertised position. are powerful, because they connect with their audience Today, many of these same genre conventions still on multiple levels, and, thus, are more memorable exist in 21st-century résumé conventions. For example, than a mere listing of facts. Similarly, Kursmark (2014) Kursmark (2014) recommended that résumés should pointed out that “storytelling aids in personal branding” be succinct, include stable categories of skills and in that it helps to distinguish a professional from others experiences, contain action verbs, and be composed of by establishing a unique and memorable point of “tight writing” that is “stripped of non-essentials” (p. connection (p. 21). Although Kursmark (2014) did not 14). Nevertheless, key differences exist between 21st identify a specific type of storytelling, she hinted that -century and earlier iterations of the résumé genre. For job-seeking professionals were using various forms of example, today’s job-seeking professional is also advised media to tell their stories. to include live links to an “email address, LinkedIn profile,…online portfolios, a Twitter feed, a digital Theoretical Considerations business card, or relevant website” (pp. 14–15). The inclusion of such digital artifacts (online or Web-based In today’s highly competitive job market, professionals communication items) within the résumé content may are creating résumés that exhibit traditional genre suggest that the genre is evolving to address digital, conventions. However, research (Chiang & Suen, Web-based communication practices. 2015; Labrecque, Markos, & Milne, 2011; McCabe, As an example of evolving résumé genre 2017) has suggested that job seekers are also turning to conventions, as recently as 2013, Forbes reported that social media (particularly, the professional networking professionals were adapting résumés to the online site LinkedIn) to display résumé content and manage interactive presentation software Prezi, which led to personal branding that is enriched by transmedia the coining of the term, prezumé, a résumé created storytelling. Jenkins (2006) theorized that this is due using Prezi (Asghar, 2013). In 2016, the career website to “media convergence” and “participatory culture” themuse.com advised readers to consider converting where users become producers, consumers, and their LinkedIn profile and résumé information into sharers of content. The following sections examine an infographic. The content writer’s rationale was an understanding of the theoretical interplay among that a well-designed infographic might actually “make genre, media convergence, participatory culture, social a recruiter want to read it,” because infographics networking, and transmedia storytelling as a lens for visualize personal data in an accessible format (Little- analyzing changing résumé genre conventions and Fleck, 2016). Apers and Derous (2016) noted that, in associated communication practices. addition to prezumés and infographics, video résumés have become increasingly popular with professionals, Genre Conventions because video résumés allow applicants to “present Miller (1984) defined genre as a “recurrent, significant themselves to recruiters or potential employers and action,” an embodiment of “cultural rationality,” and elaborate on their competencies, qualifications, and a key to “understanding how to participate in the previous work experiences” (p. 9). Video résumés actions of a community” (p. 165). She also noted also are a good medium for storytelling, because they that participation is in response to an exigence or set can provide verbal, non-verbal, visual, and auditory of exigencies that are not “material” and “objective” cues to potential employers (Apers & Derous, 2016, as Bitzer (1968) advocated, but as a “form of social p. 9). These are a few methods that professionals are knowledge—a mutual construing of objects, events, using to adapt traditional print-on-paper résumés into interests, and purposes” and as a “socially recognizable… interactive media in order to tell their stories and to occasion…for making public our private versions of establish personal branding. things” (Miller, 1984, p. 158). Miller’s definition has Kursmark (2014) clarified that the “final hallmark significantly altered our understanding of genre from a of the modern résumé is its storytelling style” (p. fixed form to a fluid one that is adaptable to the purposes 19). Not only does storytelling breathe life into an and actions of those who compose in it. Likewise, otherwise dull set of particulars, but it also humanizes Yates and Orlikowski (1992) suggested that genre was

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Lynn B. McCool more than just an “isolated rational action,” but instead instantaneous. The end result has been that users are was part of a “social process” (p. 299). However, Yates producing, consuming, adapting, and remixing content and Orlikowski (1992) extended the concept of genre in unprecedented ways (Bolter & Grusin, 2003; from its rhetorical roots to a “structurational concept” Gitelman, 2008). of organizational communication (p. 300). In their According to Jenkins (2006), using multiple media theory of genre, Yates and Orlikowski (1992) posited in this way as both producer and consumer has created that “social institutions…both shape and are shaped a “convergence” within the “brains” of individuals by individuals’ communication actions” (p. 300). The and has represented a shift in cultural logic so that genre-as-organizational-communication theory explained now consumers “seek out new information and make the interactions between how professionals communicate connections among dispersed media content” (p. 3). in the workplace and how workplace communication Additionally, Jenkins noted that media convergence genres are shaped by communicative responses to is “more than simply a technological shift,” because it workplace exigences. “alters the relationship between existing technologies, Additionally, Killoran (2006) noted that Web- industries, markets, genres, and audience” (p. 15). The based communication technologies have “greatly evolution of the résumé genre from merely a “collection facilitated genre production and dissemination” as well of qualifications and accomplishments” to a “cohesive as a migration of print to digital forms (p. 425). As narrative of the job seeker’s career” (Kursmark, 2014, an example, job-seekers are expected to communicate p. 19) has been due, in part, to media convergence. their employment information in conventional, printed In spaces where “old and new media collide” (Jenkins, genres, but, in order to distinguish themselves from 2006, p. 2), job seekers’ relationships to their media and others, they must also consider how to migrate their to their audiences continue to change, due to relatively résumé content to digital formats. Many have chosen easy access to multiple media technologies, social media to migrate content to personal websites, online dossiers, platforms, and a growing participatory culture. and social networking sites such as LinkedIn where a person may consume, produce, and share media. Participatory Culture Furthermore, Droz and Jacobs (2019) suggested that The relationship between media convergence and genres really act as “chameleons,” changing or adapting a participatory culture has been linked by the to meet the external pressures put upon a genre’s set development of Web 2.0 technologies. In a participatory conventions. Malone and Wright (2018) observed culture, contributors are invited “to actively participate the distinctions among genre conventions, genre in the creation and circulation of new content” and to history, and genre etymology to suggest that Miller’s share, repost, and comment on their own and other’s genre-as-social-action is a “bottom-up approach” and content (Jenkins, 2006, p. 290). Contrasted against is “particularly well-suited to serve as a theoretical the static consumer mentality of a pre-Web 2.0 era, a perspective” of and definition for genre (p. 117). This participatory culture invites the use of social media sites understanding of Miller’s (1984) definition of genre is such as LinkedIn, where users produce, consume, and used in this article to broadly encompass the way an repost content, respond to each other, and, as a result, individual’s communication practices may adapt and shape culture through their social actions. Interestingly, genre conventions may evolve in response to situation, communication may be to audiences both known and exigency, audience, media, and networked technologies. unknown as the sharing of social media messages range from private and closed to public and open. Media Convergence To live in a participatory culture is to live with Futurist Alvin Toffler (1980) first anticipated the uncertainty. Jenkins (2006) observed that “none evolution of communication practices in his work The of us really knows how to live in this era of media Third Wave and coined the term prosumer to describe convergence…and participatory culture” because people a type of technology user, who was not merely a with different ideological stances may embrace or reject consumer of content but also a producer of it. For 21st- it. There is not a clear “mapping” of how these reactions century communicators, creating and sharing media will be determined (Jenkins, 2006, p. 170). So, while on networked technologies is relatively easy and nearly there are great opportunities to shape culture through

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participation, there are also corresponding anxieties in p. 13). Notaro posited that the Internet has offered a world where the rules are not entirely clear and where an “expanded context” for storytelling to occur that content never really disappears forever. Nevertheless, is “perfectly apt for exploiting the already inherently despite these risks and uncertainties, many job-seeking ‘social’ character of literary culture” (p. 5). According to professionals are turning to social media to market Notaro, this expanded context exemplifies Latitude’s “4 themselves with the aim of career advancement. I’s: Immersion, Interactivity, Integration, and Impact” (p. 17). Using the affordances of the Internet, readers Social Networking can “explore a story in greater depth” and reach a wider One important outgrowth of media convergence is a job audience outside the “confines of a single medium” seeker’s use of social media to connect and communicate (p. 17). Often, Internet users will turn to multimedia with a wider audience than was previously possible. storytelling—the use of multiple media or multimodal McCabe (2017) commented that social media is composing to create and share stories. Some will even disrupting or “interrupting the normal course of action” embrace transmedia storytelling techniques to create in the ways in which employees find jobs and the ways personal branding on social media. in which employers find employees (p. 87). Similarly, Transmedia storytelling differs from multimedia Reardon, Wright, and Malone (2017) also have noted storytelling in that transmedia storytelling “involves that “virtual spaces—such as social media—… have distributing narrative across different media platforms given consumers much greater visibility and power to provide multiple, different, yet connected, narrative than they had 30 years ago” (p. 53). Consequently, experiences focused on the same subject” (Barber, 2016, job seekers’ increased visibility on social media has not p. 8). On the other hand, multimedia storytelling gone unnoticed by potential employers. Chiang and uses various media “separately or in combination” to Suen (2015) noticed that workforce recruitment has tell the same story (p. 7). An example of multimedia changed in response to social networking. For example, storytelling is adapting a book-length story into a employers frequently use social networks to “source movie or a play. This is the same story told in a different and screen candidates” (p. 571). Likewise, job seekers medium. By contrast, transmedia storytelling uses create “professional identities in combination with their multiple media to tell smaller, distinct (not identical) personal profiles” (p. 517). These identities are reflected narratives that comprise the larger narrative. by the information displayed in sections of job history, Professionals showcase their personal branding professional roles, endorsements, service positions, via social media in order to present answers to the civic interests, as well as the user’s posts about and links existential questions of “Who am I?” “What do I to other content (Rangarajan, Gelb, & Vandaveer, value?” “What have I experienced?” and “What am I 2017, p. 657). Additionally, Labrecque, Markos, and good at?” (Rangarajan, Gelb, & Vandaveer, 2017, p. Milne (2011) suggested that these features of the 659). Rangarajan, Gelb, and Vandaveer noted in their user’s LinkedIn profile have contributed to personal research that both “competence” and “distinctiveness” branding, which is similar to product branding except were important qualities in creating and promoting that “personal branding entails capturing and promoting personal branding (p. 657). Using transmedia an individual’s strengths and uniqueness to a target storytelling strategies as a natural extension of their audience” (p. 38). To echo Jenkin’s (2006) observation lived experiences, professionals can foster emotional about media convergence, the marketing of one’s connections with others to establish and maintain their personal branding in a participatory culture invites the personal branding. use of media in unprecedented ways. For example, some Therefore, with transmedia storytelling, participants professionals are turning to the participatory method of cannot understand the whole story without viewing transmedia storytelling to create and promote personal all smaller, distinct narratives in various digital forms branding on social media sites such as LinkedIn. and without making connections among all the smaller narratives to comprise a cohesive whole. Additionally, Transmedia Storytelling consumers of transmedia storytelling are invited Narrative (or storytelling) has often been considered to participate in the experience. Thus, transmedia “a form of existential problem-solving” (Notaro, 2014, storytelling fosters active, dynamic participation from

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Lynn B. McCool its audience instead of mere static consumer mentality, and used case-study methodology that “explored a real- and so it is ideally situated for professionals to use in life contemporary bounded system.…and report[ed] a personal branding messages. case description” (Creswell, 2013, p. 97). Additionally, the next-gen résumé of this LinkedIn user, Tyrone Methods Jacobs, Jr., was a relevant case study, because, as a recent graduate of the University of Toledo, Jacobs This research study seeks to answer the question: How had been actively pursuing employment in the field of do 21st-century professionals use transmedia storytelling electrical engineering. His posts were responsive to the techniques on the LinkedIn social media platform to exigencies of locating and securing employment. As create personal branding in response to the exigencies of he was transitioning from student to professional, his both media convergence and a participatory culture? profile provided an interesting look at how a motivated Using a qualitative case-study methodology for individual with limited prior work experience might investigating “a contemporary phenomenon within its use the affordances of both media convergence and a real life context” (Rowley, 2002, p. 18), I conducted my participatory culture to create personal branding via research on LinkedIn, a popular social media platform, transmedia storytelling on LinkedIn. I contacted Jacobs designed for “business professionals to network, get to request that I might use his LinkedIn profile for the resources and support, and build relationships with case study. He was given and has signed an informed potential customers, clients, and partners” (Duermyer, consent form agreeing to become a participant in 2018). LinkedIn was a logical choice because its Web- this case study. He also gave permission for use of based platform encourages networked connections, screenshots (images) of some of his public posts on provides quick sharing of information, and attracts LinkedIn. To increase the validity of my research, I fact- professionals as its target audience. In short, LinkedIn’s checked my description of his use of LinkedIn with him Web-based platform allows for both media convergence via the message mail feature on LinkedIn. and a participatory culture. After procuring an IRB exempt research status, Discussion I searched for LinkedIn user profiles that were publicly available and that contained multiple media The case study discussion begins with a brief description as part of their personal narrative techniques. I of Tyrone Jacobs, Jr.’s publicly available user profile used purposive sampling by searching for LinkedIn on LinkedIn and then discusses how he uses multiple profiles with multimodal iterations of résumé content, media, transmedia storytelling, and social (participatory) such as prezumés, infographics, and video résumés. networking to promote his personal branding. Additionally, I used snowball sampling, because, after I found the first user with a public profile that included User Profile on LinkedIn a multimodal iteration of a résumé, I read posts on Although most LinkedIn users provide traditional that user’s page, looking for response links by the résumé content on their LinkedIn pages—such as user’s “connections” (LinkedIn’s version of Facebook’s sections on experience, education, licensure and “friends”). I continued to click on other users’ profile certifications, volunteer experience, and skills—these hyperlinks in search of a case-study participant that sections are not the first to be displayed on LinkedIn’s used the following criteria in promoting personal user template. Instead, a user’s profile (or brief branding on LinkedIn: biographical information) is the first information that • Multiple media artifacts is displayed. By displaying a user’s profile first, the • Transmedia storytelling techniques LinkedIn platform is distinctively suited to connect • Networking and participatory culture professionals to one another. A user’s profile typically includes a recent photo, a descriptive tagline, and While clicking on and reviewing user profiles (I perhaps a brief statement about the person. In Figure looked at 25 different profiles), I found one user who 1, Jacobs uses his photo, tagline, bio, and links to fit the evaluation criteria. I narrowed my research and additional media to introduce himself to his audience subsequent discussion to that user’s LinkedIn profile and to connect his audience to his personal branding.

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résumé content. Users fill out sections on experience, education, licensure and certifications, volunteer experience, and accomplishments. Figure 2 displays Jacobs’ “Experience” section in which he lists not only his current employment at Boeing but also membership in other key organizations related both to his job at Boeing and to his interests in leadership and motivation. The strategic placement of both his vocational work and avocational interests in the same section form a link between Jacobs’ work as an aerospace engineer and his passion for leadership. This link also strategically factors into his personal branding by establishing to other LinkedIn users that Jacobs, the professional, is more than the sum total of his formal education, skills, and experience. Reading further, Jacobs’ user profile reveals that he is a 2018 graduate of the University of Toledo with a BS in Electrical Engineering, and he is currently employed at Boeing. Correspondingly, Jacobs displays information from his undergraduate years. Thus, other LinkedIn professionals learn that he was a member of and was actively involved in the National Society of Black Engineers, for which he was an academic Figure 1. Tyrone Jacobs, Jr.’s profile information with links to excellence chairperson, chapter vice-president, additional “stories” programs chairperson, and graduating senior reception coordinator. Jacobs’ other college experiences include In his personal bio, Jacobs quickly departs from traditional résumé conventions and moves towards a storytelling style that humanizes him. His personal bio narrative focuses less on his professional accomplishments and more on what motivates him personally. His bio explains his “why” for getting out of bed and going to work each day. In fact, what motivates him is not his current employment as an engineer but the ability to help other people through hard times. Likewise, from his bio, the reader infers that Jacobs has not been a stranger to hard times. His energy and passion for others come through in his writing. His introduction quickly moves to a personal opening in which he states, “What you REALLY want to know is who I am without all the ‘stuff’?” Then he proceeds to tell the reader that he likes to watch wrestling on YouTube, eat day-old Chipotle burritos, and follow his passion of being “a blessing to others” (Jacobs, 2018). Traditional Résumé Content The formatting of the template on LinkedIn’s platform Figure 2. “Experience” section on Jacob’s profile page. He also provides designated spaces for traditional links his employment with memberships in organizations.

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participation in undergraduate student research, of character in the participatory environment of two internships with Boeing, peer mentorship at the LinkedIn’s social media platform. By contrast, the University of Toledo, and membership at Breathe content of a traditional résumé does not afford a University, a holistic, success-oriented, motivational professional the same type of participatory responses organization. Jacobs’ list of experiences and education that the shared content of a résumé on LinkedIn does. mimics, to a degree, the information found in Additionally, by displaying his endorsements, a traditional résumé. However, his inclusion of recommendations, and interests, Jacobs makes stronger membership at Breathe University in his “Experience” emotional connections with other professionals, and section provides an important link to his self- these connections help to bolster his personal branding. description in his personal bio. In part, the “Recommendations” and “Endorsements” Similar to the traditional résumé genre, a LinkedIn sections demonstrate how the LinkedIn platform profile also includes spaces for skills and endorsements, encourages both the production and consumption of recommendations, and interests. However, there are media. Jacobs uses these sections to build his personal differences between these LinkedIn sections and those branding by showcasing accomplishments through found within the traditional résumé genre. Figure 3 multiple media artifacts and networking with other illustrates how Jacobs’ LinkedIn connections provide professionals and organizations on LinkedIn’s social him with endorsements of skills and recommendations media platform. Multiple Media Artifacts To understand how Jacobs uses multiple media artifacts, I return to the space underneath his bio, where Jacobs provides links to five additional media stories that continue to build his personal branding. Figure 4 shows the image links to his five stories. I address them in reverse order to present a chronological understanding of Jacobs’ professional branding. From right to left, Figure 5 shows a link to a 1:25-minute video that presents Jacobs in business dress with upbeat music in the background. Unlike other video résumés in which the presenter begins with a list of education, skills, and experience, Jacobs begins with a rhetorical question: “Are you waking up to an alarm clock, or are you waking up to your calling?” He implies that life has not always been easy for him, but he has defied the odds as a young man who grew up under adverse circumstances. He challenges his audience to consider what motivates them, to strive for greatness, and to be better. The video allows us to see Jacobs’ inner thoughts as he tells Figure 3. “Recommendations” section on Jacobs’ profile. This a part of his “story” that is not typically displayed in section evidences a participatory culture. traditional résumé content.

Figure 4. Image links on Jacobs’ profile direct users to additional media descriptions of his professional branding.

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The UT news article described how Jacobs’ portrait ended up on LinkedIn’s wall (Kroll, 2016). The Figure 6 image is also closely connected to the third media link under Jacobs’ bio, which is displayed in Figure 7.

Figure 5. YouTube video in which Jacobs describes his personal motivation

Right to left, the second link is to the image of Figure 7. University of Toledo’s website (2016) featuring Jacobs sitting on a couch in front of a neutral wall Jacobs’ LinkedIn story with the LinkedIn logo behind him. This image in Figure 6 conveys a double story of sorts, because this The third media link is to Kroll’s (2016) article image was included in an article on the “News” section on UT’s website and is about Jacobs’ experience of of the University of Toledo’s (UT) website, but the securing an internship at Boeing and his ensuing original image was taken and displayed at LinkedIn’s connection to LinkedIn. Kroll’s (2016) article related headquarters in California. that Jacobs had attended the National Society of Black Engineers conference in Boston and, subsequently, was interviewed by Boeing. When he was offered a summer internship at Boeing, he posted his good news on his LinkedIn profile page. This action, according to Jacobs, evoked a nearly viral response. Jacobs commented, “the post just blew up…[and] took off like a rocket. It had 13,000 to 14,000 likes and comments” (Kroll, 2016). Figure 8 shows Jacobs’ corresponding response post to his instant celebrity. When LinkedIn discovered Jacobs’ post and the subsequent participatory activity of people viewing his post (14,000 likes and comments, according to Jacobs), the company decided to feature an image of him on one wall at the LinkedIn headquarters (Kroll, 2016). After the internship with Boeing, LinkedIn flew him out to their headquarters to meet CEO Jeff Weiner and other employees. From that point forward, LinkedIn has continued to promote Jacobs’ content and has featured articles written by him. Interestingly, after graduation from the University of Toledo, Boeing offered and Jacobs accepted a position as an engineer. Jacobs returned the favor with a subsequent thank-you post including a link in the message to Jeff Weiner, CEO of Figure 6. Photograph of Jacobs that is displayed on a wall at LinkedIn. The likes and comments revealed in Figure LinkedIn’s headquarters in CA 8 demonstrate how users both consume and produce

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Lynn B. McCool content on LinkedIn’s social media platform and also Reflecting a more recent experience, his fifth demonstrate how communication practices are evolving media link is to a promotional image for the Tech in response to the exigencies of media convergence. Jobs Tour, at whose Los Angeles conference Jacobs Next, the fourth media link is another photo was a speaker (see Figure 10). Tech Jobs Tour aims to of Jacobs taken at LinkedIn’s headquarters that was connect a diverse workforce with the 500,000 open used by LinkedIn in their #ChaseGreat campaign tech jobs that currently exist in America (“About Tech (see Figure 9). Jobs Tour,” 2019). As a way to thank LinkedIn for its support, Jacobs posts his #ChaseGreat Campaign photo to his activity feed along with his words of gratitude. Interestingly, in Jacobs’ written comments on this post, we also learn more about his early personal history, which, in turn, creates additional emotional connections to him.

Figure 8. Jacobs’ response post about acquiring 10,000 followers on LinkedIn Figure 9. Photo of Jacobs for LinkedIn’s #ChaseGreat campaign

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Figure 10. Jacobs at Tech Jobs Tour, 2018

This image of Jacobs demonstrates his ability to continue connecting and networking with other professionals in a way that affords him greater visibility and agency. Additionally, LinkedIn viewers witness the interplay of Jacobs’ personal branding with Boeing’s company branding and vice versa. Lastly, in addition to the media linked under his profile, Jacobs regularly posts in his activity feed to share opportunities and accomplishments, connect with others, and promote his branding. For example, most recently, he spoke to a group of students at Grace Hopper STEM Academy. Figure 11 shows the promotional poster for this event along with the participatory responses by some of Jacobs’ followers. Jacobs continues to bolster his brand through his posts. His followers also engage in a participatory culture by responding to him with affirmative posts. Additionally, as a follow up to his speaking engagement at Grace Hopper Academy, Jacobs shares, in his activity feed, one of his experiences with a student at the academy. Figure 12 demonstrates how strong Figure 11. Jacobs’ post about his speaking event emotional connections can be made with followers as Jacob describes his motivation behind his actions with a résumé content and multiple media such as images, student at Grace Hopper Academy. video, and text that share details of his professional Using multimodal composing, Jacobs tells his story life. Each of these artifacts helps to create his personal on LinkedIn through the inclusion of both traditional branding. Although he does not connect to other

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Lynn B. McCool personal social media streams via his LinkedIn profile, Implications a quick Internet search reveals that Jacobs participates in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. In addition to paper résumés, many young professionals Jacobs epitomizes the 21st-century citizen where “net use social media platforms as a way to post information media usage has become the normality for an entire about themselves to a wider audience (Dijck, 2009; generation, who inhabit the Internet as a true living Deurmyer, 2018). Posts often contain writing that space and regard this space as natural to them as a non- blurs personal and professional topics of interest, digital environment” (Thimm, 2017, p. 93). and links to other writers’ pertinent content. Posts may display completed projects, a discussion of the Transmedia Storytelling professional’s skill set, and an “About Me” section Do all the different artifacts that Jacobs uses to build intended to humanize the professional. Along with his personal branding on LinkedIn tell the same story, textual artifacts, professionals may create prezumés, or are they smaller narratives of a larger story? While infographic résumés, and video résumés, and include the artifacts display some overlap, I argue that Jacobs links to images, articles, or other media that creatively does use transmedia storytelling techniques to help his showcase education, skills, and abilities. Many use the followers (audience) fully understand who he is as a social media platform LinkedIn as a professional dossier person and as a professional. Unlike a narrative that is and as a way to network with other professionals by retold the same way in different media, Jacobs tells bits sharing articles, posting original content to a broader of his story, using one type of media and then another. audience, and consuming content from others on His use of the social media platform LinkedIn invites the platform. The use of transmedia storytelling and participation from his followers. Moreover, Jacobs’ multimodal composition in conjunction with a 21st- followers will not get a full sense of who he is as a person century social media platform is important for reaching until they read and digest all the artifacts he has provided. a wider audience, building emotional capital, and Likewise, Jacobs’ followers are invited to interact inviting participation from viewers. These elements also (participate) with his LinkedIn posts. His followers offer are contributing to the changing conventions of the affirmation, encouragement, and suggestions as they résumé genre. become part of a “dynamic-participatory medium” that For instructors of professional and technical empowers its users (Thimm, 2017, p. 94). communication, the realities of media convergence and a participatory culture deserve our careful consideration. First, tracking the evolution of résumé genre conventions is an important activity in order to understand and better respond to 21st century networked communication. Secondly, researchers may help mitigate the anxieties of media convergence and a participatory culture by offering “bottom-up” rhetorical strategies to address changing résumé genre conventions and thereby influencing cultural norms. Thirdly, rethinking professional composition pedagogy in regard to résumé and job packet assignments is a necessary next undertaking if we are to present relevant information to students. Not only does the evolving résumé genre afford instructors the opportunity to expand students’ understanding of multimodal composing, but it also heightens their awareness of an always-on, always- connected world. More research is needed to examine the evolving résumé genre. Creating résumé content Figure 12. Jacobs’ narrative of his Grace Hopper Academy and personal branding on LinkedIn requires a critical experience examination of its affordances and constraints.

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In brief, young professionals are not turning to Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research textbooks, parents, academic journal articles, or other design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand traditional resources for advice on how to create Oaks, CA: Sage. résumés and establish personal branding (Randazzo, Dijck, J. V. (2009). Users like you? Theorizing agency 2016, p. 278). Instead, they are turning to a networked, in user-generated content. Media, Culture & Society, social world and using transmedia storytelling to 31(1), 41–58. doi:10.1177/0163443708098245 attract consumers and producers with “an always-on, Droz, P. W., & Jacobs, L. S. (2019, February 04). Genre always-connected” world. Within this virtual realm, chameleon: Email, professional writing curriculum, sometimes, professionals are rewarded in the form of and workplace writing expectations. Retrieved from likes and comments. However, sometimes, as in the https://www.stc.org/techcomm/2019/02/04/genre- case of Tyrone Jacobs, Jr., the rewards come in the chameleon-email-professional-writing-curriculum- ability to use narrative to connect both vocation (a job and-workplace-writing-expectations/ at Boeing) and avocation (a personal passion to help Duermyer, R. (2018, May 13). Introduction to others succeed) while promoting his personal branding LinkedIn—Learn what It does and how it works. and living out his aspirations. Retrieved from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/ introduction-to-Linkedin-1794572 References Gitelman, L. (2008). Always already new: Media, history and the data of culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. About Tech Jobs Tour. (2019). Retrieved from https:// Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old techjobstour.com/ and new media collide. New York, NY: NYU Press. Apers, C., & Derous, E. (2017). Are they accurate? Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j. Recruiters’ personality judgments in paper versus ctt9qffwr video resumes. Computers in Human Behavior, 73, Killoran, J. B. (2006). Self-published web résumés: 9-19. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.02.063 Their purposes and their genre systems. Journal Asghar, R. (2013, September 11). Times have of Business and Technical Communication, 20(4), changed. Your résumé needs to change, too. 425–459. doi:10.1177/1050651906290267 Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ Kroll, V. L. (2016) “Electrical Engineering Student robasghar/2013/05/20/times-have-changed-your- Inspires LinkedIn Campaign.” UT News, résumé-needs-to-change-too-2/#626457332f47 University of Toledo. Retrieved from utnews. Barber, J. F. (2016). Digital storytelling: New utoledo.edu/index.php/11_07_2016/electrical- opportunities for humanities scholarship and engineering-student-inspires-Linkedin-campaign pedagogy. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 3(1). doi:10.1 Kursmark, L. (2014). Today’s modern résumé. Career 080/23311983.2016.1181037 Planning and Adult Development Journal, 30(2), Bitzer, L. F. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy 13–23. & Rhetoric, 1(1), 1–14. Retrieved from http://www. Labrecque, L. I., Markos, E., & Milne, G. R. jstor.org/stable/10.2307/40236733?refreqid=sear (2011). Online personal branding: Processes, ch-gateway:59034272ed3a0888631393d648335 challenges, and implications. Journal of Interactive dc4 Marketing, 25, 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (2003). Remediation: intmar.2010.09.002 Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Little-Fleck, J. (2016, September 28). 5 sites to create an Press. awesome infographic résumé (even if you’re the least Chiang, J. K., & Suen, H. (2015). Self-presentation creative person ever). Retrieved from https://www. and hiring recommendations in online themuse.com/advice/5-sites-to-create-an-awesome- communities: Lessons from LinkedIn. Computers infographic-résumé-even-if-youre-the-least-creative- in Human Behavior, 48, 516–524. doi:10.1016/j. person-ever chb.2015.02.017 Malone, E. A., & Wright, D. (2018). “To promote that demand”: Toward a history of the marketing white paper as a genre. Journal of Business and

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Technical Communication, 32(1), 113–147. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1177/1050651917729861 doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51289-1_5 McCabe, M. B. (2017). Social media marketing Thoms, P., McMasters, R., Roberts, M. R., & strategies for career advancement: An analysis Dombkowski, D. A. (1999, Spring). Résumé of LinkedIn. Journal of Business and Behavioral characteristics as predictors of an invitation to Sciences, 29(1), 85–99. interview. Journal of Business and Psychology, 13(3), Miller, C. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly 339–355. Journal of Speech, 70, 151–167. Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. New York, NY: Notaro, A. (2014). How networked communication Bantam Books. has changed the ways we tell stories. Technology, Weiner, J. (2018). User Profile, Linkedin, viewed 19 Imagination, Narrative Forms. In L. Esposito, E. September 2018. https://www.Linkedin.com/in/ Piga, A. Ruggiero (Eds.), Between, 4(8). Retrieved jeffweiner08/ from http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/ Yates, J. (2005). Control through communication: The rise view/1341 of system in American management. New York, NY: Peters, T. (1997). The brand called you. Retrieved ACLS History E-Book Project. from https://www.fastcompany.com/28905/ Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. J. (1992). Genres of brand-called-you organizational communication: A structurational Popken, R. (1999). The pedagogical dissemination of a approach to studying communication and media. genre: The résumé in American business discourse Academy of Management Review, 17(2), 299–326. textbooks, 1914–1939. JAC, 19(1), 91–116. Randazzo, C. (2016). Where do they go? Students’ About the Author sources of résumé advice, and implications for critically reimagining the résumé assignment. Lynn B. McCool is an assistant professor of business Technical Communication Quarterly, 25(4), 278– communication in the College of Business and Public 297. doi:10.1080/10572252.2016.1221142 Administration (CBPA) at Drake University. She is Rangarajan, D., Gelb, B. D., & Vandaveer, A. (2017). an active member of the Council of Writing Program Strategic personal branding—And how it pays off. Administrators (CWPA), the Association for Business Business Horizons, 60(5), 657–666. doi:10.1016/j. Communication (ABC), the Association of Teachers of bushor.2017.05.009 Technical Writing (ATTW), the Society for Technical Reardon D. C., Wright, D., & Malone, E. A. (2017). Communication (STC), and the National Council of Quest for the happy ending to Mass Effect 3: The Teachers of English (NCTE). Her work examines the challenge of cocreation with consumers in a post- intersection of social media, digital rhetoric, online Certeauian age. Technical Communication Quarterly, writing instruction, and business and professional 26(1), 42–58. composition pedagogy. She is a frequent conference Rowley, J. (2002). Using case studies in research. speaker, invited lecturer, and editor-in-chief of the Management Research News, 25(1), 16-27. Drake Management Review. She is available at lynn. doi:10.1108/01409170210782990 [email protected]. Roybal, P. (2017, September 21). Great examples of how members are using Linkedin video. Retrieved from https://blog.Linkedin.com/2017/ Manuscript received 21 September 2018, revised 30 April 2019; september/21/great-examples-of-how-members-are- accepted 6 May 2019 using-Linkedin-video Thimm, C. (2017). Media convergence and the network society: Media logic(s), polymedia and the transition of the public sphere. In S. Sparviero, C. Peil, & G. Balbi (Eds.), Media convergence and deconvergence (pp. 93–112).

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 243 Applied Research The Transmedia Workbench: Technical Communication and User-Driven Innovation By David Mueller

Abstract Purpose: Emergent cultural and technological developments are actively involving users not just in how technology is understood and utilized but also in how it is produced and what its capabilities might be. From the perspective of technical communication, this direct involvement is enacted across networks of participatory media artifacts: webpages, user forums, tutorial videos, images, and open source software. In this article, I discuss how these transmedia networks support user-driven innovation and what roles technical communicators might play in creating, curating, and maintaining them. As a case study of a transmedia network, I examine the Werkstatt Workshop, the online user portal supporting Moog’s Werkstatt synthesizer. Method: My case study employs discourse analytic techniques to show how the language of the Werkstatt Workshop is both descriptive and constitutive of an emergent social practice. To theorize roles for technical communicators, I draw on previous studies of user forums, open source software, and tactical technical communication. Results: Discourses circulating within the Werkstatt Workshop go beyond simply documenting system processes to construct a world in which network participants enact identities, form relationships, and reconfigure information across media boundaries. The open, participatory orientation of the network incentivizes information sharing and innovation, as users organize knowledge resources around a common set of technological problems. Conclusion: Emerging cultures of making and modifying present opportunities to technical communicators as content creators, network administrators, and critics, helping to construct, optimize, and seriously understand new, productive knowledge networks supporting user-centered production and innovation. Keywords: transmedia, documentation, user-driven innovation, fabrication, participatory networks

Practitioner’s • In order to understand what users take place, as well as in coordinating Takeaway: require from technology, we must knowledge resources to help solve work to understand how the problems that are too complex or technology fits into their sense of obscure to be worked out through self and community. user interactions. • Although technical communicators • As administrators, technical might have a limited role as content communicators can help ensure creators in a transmedia network, that users can find the information there is ongoing, emergent work to they need, develop relationships be done in order to maintain the they value, and enact identities that channels in which user relationships represent their ideals.

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Introduction engineer, and modder) and share their knowledge and experiences with one another. Together, these resources Although technical communicators have long recognized serve as a transmedia workbench, a space where users the need to involve users in the process of product build not only technological projects and knowledge but documentation and support, new technologies are relationships with technology and with one another that now bringing users directly into design and production encourage continued innovation. processes as well. Emergent developments in technology My case study of the Werkstatt Workshop employs (Anderson, 2012) and culture (Gershenfeld, 2007) discourse analytic techniques based on Fairclough’s actively involve users not just in how technology is (1992) social theory of discourse and Gee’s (2014) understood and utilized but also in how it is produced building tasks of language to show how knowledge and what its capabilities might be. From the perspective resources collected in the Werkstatt Workshop are of technical communication, this direct involvement is both descriptive and constitutive of an emergent social enacted across a spectrum of participatory media formats: practice. To theorize roles for technical communicators, webpages, user forums, tutorial videos, images and open I draw examples from user forums (Swarts, 2015), open source software. Taken together, these diverse resources source software (Yeats, 2008), and tactical technical constitute what Kinder (2016) identified as a transmedia communication (Kimball, 2006, 2017). network: “a deliberate move across media boundaries…. an on-going active process that always remains open and Transmedia: From Storytelling is always subject to change.” It is precisely this “moving to Documentation across” that distinguishes a transmedia network from a static collection of multimodal knowledge resources. The termtransmedia was first used by Kinder (1991) to Within these networks, participants pursue complex, describe a system of narrative intertextuality between sometimes personal goals, drawing on different media children’s television, toys, video games, films, comics, resources as they see fit. Such cross-boundary movement and other media that offer children a multiplicity supports a kind of learning different from that of simple of subject positions to explore and internalize. In task-based instruction. Participants do not engage with particular, a transmedia narrative enables children a transmedia network to learn how to change a light to understand storylines both from the position of bulb but rather to discuss and design new and different the spectator (as in films and comic books) and the sources of light. participant (as in video games or television shows where In this article, I examine how transmedia networks characters on the screen address the viewer directly). support user-driven innovation and what roles technical As Kinder (1991) wrote, “[n]arrative maps the world communicators might play in these networks. I begin and its inhabitants, including one’s own position in by discussing the concept of transmedia storytelling the grid” (p. 7). The transmedia narrative builds a (Kinder, 1991; Jenkins, 2012) in the context of technical world for children to inhabit, a world with its own documentation. I argue that the same basic conditions history and conventions, which children assimilate which drive participant engagement with fictional as both spectators (through television and film) and narratives can also apply to information resources. As participants (through play with video games and toys). a case study of a transmedia documentation network, Jenkins (2012) further developed the concept of I examine the Werkstatt Workshop, the online user transmedia storytelling by looking at how entertainment portal supporting the Moog Werkstatt synthesizer. The franchises use distributed media resources to build Werkstatt is a kit-based, build-it-yourself synthesizer, immersive narrative environments that are supported which users construct and modify by drawing on by participatory fan networks. Examining an emerging knowledge resources in the Workshop portal. This Web trend of fictional narratives that are supported by a environment collects diverse multimodal resources; coordinated network of television, film, websites, and including text, images, video, and software; to support magazines, Jenkins (2008) wrote, a variety of projects and levels of engagement with the Werkstatt kit. It also provides discussion forums where Transmedia storytelling is the art of world making. users can inhabit different roles (such as musician, To fully experience any fictional world, consumers

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must assume the role of hunters and gatherers, connected in the same interactive network, they form chasing down bits of the story across media channels, an adaptive system, a world of technology-in-use, in comparing notes with each other via online which the user can assume (and move among) different discussion groups, and collaborating to ensure that identities, relationships, and degrees of involvement. everyone who invests time and effort will come away By organizing diverse multimodal resources around with a richer entertainment experience. (p. 21) a central technology or product, transmedia networks enable participants to choose their own entry points into As an example of transmedia storytelling, Jenkins knowledge resources, according to their individual needs (2008) studied the Matrix franchise, where different and expectations. As such, transmedia documentation elements of an interconnected narrative play out across networks are sites for what Kimball (2006) described films, comics, animated shorts, and video games. For as tactical technical communication: extra-institutional example, the animated short The Second Renaissance knowledge resources developed and shared by users, serves as a prequel to the main narrative arc in the informed by their active use of technology, rather Matrix film trilogy, providing historical context for the than the manufacturer’s prescribed instructions for relationship between humans and machines. Although use. Kimball (2006) discussed tactical technical it is not necessary for viewers to see this short in order communication in the context of Johnson’s (1998) to understand the films, it adds depth to the narrative concept of the user-producer, a user who has moved for those who wish to explore the world of the story. It beyond simple tool use to become “users-as-producers also serves as a reference point in other parts of the story of knowledge derived from their experience” (Kimball, that are told in other media, such as video games and 2006, p. 70). The transmedia network is not only a place comics. While any one of these stories is, in a sense, self- to collect and share this user-produced knowledge but is a contained, each one offers unique details and perspectives fertile space for its germination. As users experiment with that augment the overall narrative. How much of this different knowledge resources, share their experiences, wider narrative a viewer experiences is a matter of and learn from one another, a new dialectic of “use” individual choice (Jenkins, 2008, pp. 116–117). comes into focus, in which discovering new possibilities A similarly deliberate move across media formats becomes a central part of goal-directed action. is evident in online networks that support user- Kimball (2006) envisioned these tactical exchanges driven innovation by collecting images, schematics, as extra-institutional, occurring at the periphery of blueprints, user testimonials, and correspondences. industrial production. However, emergent cultures of Such knowledge networks often emerge among users making (Anderson, 2012) and technologies of personal tackling similar technological problems on small fabrication suggest a new mode of production in or individual scales, designing solutions either as a which design, development, production, and use are all personal expression or to fill a gap left by mass produced served by the same participatory knowledge network technologies (Gershenfeld, 2007, pp. 12–13). Just as (Gershenfeld, 2007, p. 7). And while Johnson (1998), fictional transmedia narratives foster rich participatory writing before the turn of the century, theorized the engagement among media consumers, a transmedia user-producer as an ideal to be cultivated (p. 57), documentation network can enable users to assume maker culture and personal fabrication technologies active roles in the design and production of technical presuppose this role as a given reality. objects. Transmedia narratives employ different media to tell a different kind of story, from varying subject Personal Fabrication, Makers, positions and degrees of audience participation. and Innovation Communities Transmedia documentation networks use multimodal resources to share different kinds of information for Digital fabrication technologies; such as 3D printers, varying use-cases and levels of expertise. Thus, a single laser cutters, and CNC routers; have enabled network might offer tutorial videos, schematic diagrams, manufacturing on a much more localized, personal software downloads, and user testimonials evaluating scale than was possible under traditional industrial- specific instances of technology use. Each of these scale production models. With these technologies, resources serves a different type of need, but, when individuals and communities can pursue innovations

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David Mueller that do not meet the logistical and financial demands “innovation communities” (p. 94). These communities of mass production. Anderson (2012) discussed how consist of users who share information and resources, new fabrication tools, combined with the information- so that innovation occurs in a distributed fashion, sharing capabilities of the Internet, have empowered a with different users contributing from different areas diffuse community of inventors, entrepreneurs, artisans, of expertise. Von Hippel (2005) cited innovations and hobbyists whom he identified as “makers.” And in mountain-biking technology, as an example (pp. although the personal fabrication revolution may not yet 34–37). A biker with a background in orthopedic be upon us, the opening skirmishes are well underway. surgery will focus on a different kind of innovation than Gershenfeld (2007, p. 8) and others (e.g., Sheridan, a biker with a background in aeronautical engineering, 2010, p. 250) have argued that desktop fabrication but both innovations will be shared with the wider will follow a similar arc to that traversed by personal community and contribute to future designs. As such, computing and desktop publishing over the past several innovation communities are “stocked with useful decades. Those technologies, once reserved for specialists tools and infrastructure that increase the speed and and reliant upon expensive machinery, are now integrated effectiveness with which users can develop and test and into our daily lives at an individual level. Although diffuse their innovations” (Von Hippel, 2005, p. 93). personal fabrication has yet to undergo such a cultural Traditional models of instruction and shift, emerging maker communities provide a glimpse documentation, in which an organization provides of what is to come. In makerspaces, fab labs, and online a static document with instructions for prescribed forums, users are renegotiating the relationships between technology use, are insufficient to support innovation production and use, between knowledge and practice. communities and maker-driven technologies. These Moreover, personal fabrication technologies are new, open networks of design, production, use, and freeing the process of innovation from the burdens of discussion accommodate a much wider range of industrial scale production; makers often create products identities and use cases than can be accounted for by as a means of personal expression or in response to a information resources oriented toward simple tool localized need that has gone unmet by mass production use. In fact, maker and innovation communities often (Gershenfeld, 2007, pp. 12–16). Despite the individual develop in the blind spots left by institutional, strategic or local focus of these projects, makers generate, draw information systems. Kimball (2006) described tactical upon, and share bodies of situated knowledge that their technical communication as an act of resistance against peers can then repurpose to their own ends. Gershenfeld strategically determined systems (p. 82). However, these (2007) described how students in his fabrication class at user communities are gradually being integrated into MIT displayed a “near evangelical interest” in sharing the mainstream economy. In 2012, the U.S. Federal the new skills they learned in the course of a project, government launched a program to bring makerspaces, leaving behind “extensive tutorial material that they equipped with laser cutters and 3D printers, to 1,000 assembled as they worked” (p. 7). Since this knowledge U.S. schools (Anderson, 2012, p.19). This initiative arises from individual practice rather than organizational reflects a growing global trend toward including prescription, its contents are heterogeneous and diverse: participatory fabrication studies in educational settings, blueprints, cell phone photos (Lim, 2017, pp. 2, 7), video with the expectation that they can inform a new demonstrations, blog posts, and schematics. Whether the generation of innovators and designers (Lim, 2017). technology in question is embroidery (Gershenfeld, 2007, Transmedia networks have the potential to become p. 13), sprinkler systems (Anderson, 2012, pp. 26–27), or a crucial support system for this emerging sociocultural analog synthesizers (Werkstatt Workshop, n.d.), makers, as phenomenon, particularly because they are both producers of knowledge, rely on multimodal networks to participatory and adaptive. Since these networks collect a share information, enact identities, and build community. variety of media formats that are suited to different needs These networks can also drive innovation, as users and perspectives of technological design and use, they organize around common technological problems and provide an ecosystem in which a given community can blind spots, sharing knowledge and solutions derived interact and develop knowledge resources. Furthermore, from their experience. In his study of user-driven their participatory nature serves as a built-in incentive for innovation, Von Hippel (2005) discussed the role of users to contribute to and collaborate with the innovation

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community. As Lim (2017) noted of makers in an that technical communicators are required to process educational setting, “Learners engaging in participatory (Johnson-Eilola, 2004, p. 266). On the other hand, performances in which they derive authenticity thrive technical communication increasingly occurs under on—and look forward to—having their respective extra-institutional, ad-hoc conditions, in user forums and creative processes critiqued by social others” (p. 9). open-source documentation networks (Kimball, 2006; Swarts, 2014). The participatory, transmedia networks Conditions for Transmedia Documentation that support maker and innovation communities are often sites of just this sort of tactical technical Kinder (2016) distinguished transmedia networks from communication (von Hippel, 2005, p. 2; Anderson, more general multimedia resources in the coordinated, 2012, p. 26). However, my case study of the Werkstatt deliberate manner in which information moves across Workshop suggests that this need not be the case, media boundaries. The abundance of a transmedia especially when the network supports a product or documentation network lies not in a multiplicity of technology that is, by design, intended to be modified media formats but in the diversity of orientations or innovated upon by users. The Werkstatt synthesizer and perspectives it provides. Beginners and experts, is a kit-based, modification-focused product, supported educators and learners, designers, coders and makers by a transmedia network in which users are not so can all interact freely and make use of the resources best much instructed as to how the device should be used, as suited to their needs, all while producing a record of encouraged to explore a range of possibilities and share their experience that informs other users. their experiences with one another. Rather than a set Within these participatory networks, users build of instructions for operation, the Workshop is where status, define identities, and share their experiences with users “learn” the possibilities the Werkstatt has to offer. a given technology. Through the acts of questioning, This may seem like an isolated example, but, if desktop sharing, and collaborating, they determine the kinds fabrication becomes as accessible as desktop publishing, of media and information that make up a transmedia the need for versatile, participatory knowledge networks network. Their interactions supply the vitality that allows will necessarily undergo a similarly exponential growth. it to grow beyond a static collection of resources. For Thus, emerging cultures of making and modifying many technologies, these communities have developed present opportunities to technical communicators as from the bottom up, as users sought to fill in the gaps content creators, network administrators, and moderators left by institutional strategies. In the case of analog who all help to construct, optimize, and seriously synthesizers, the relative simplicity of the circuits, and understand new, productive knowledge networks the general availability of parts and tools with which to supporting user-centered production and innovation. modify them, provided material support for a culture of modification and innovation. With the emergence of Transmedia in Action: The personal fabrication technologies, such material support Werkstatt Workshop will be available for countless technologies, many of which will have no pre-existing culture of user-innovation. These Moog Synthesizers originally released the Werkstatt-01 newly accessible technologies will have the potential to synthesizer in 2014 in conjunction with its meet localized needs and empower personal expression. In “Engineering VIP Workshop,” hosted at Moogfest, an order to fulfil this potential, they will require knowledge annual music festival the company sponsors. Festival resources that can collect the memory of past practices attendees had the option to pay a premium for a and suggest the possibility of future developments. The special VIP ticket that included a workshop session in transmedia network is just such a resource which they built and modified their own synthesizers. The same cultural and technological developments By holding a VIP “engineering” workshop at a music that have given rise to both transmedia networks and festival, Moog both granted attendees specialized status maker culture have also contributed to the uncertain and positioned the Werkstatt at a nexus of user roles. landscape of professional technical communication. Moog brought the Werkstatt into general production On the one hand, an increase in automation has as a modular kit the following year and established the reduced both the volume and scope of information Werkstatt Workshop as an online user portal to support

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David Mueller both the sense of community and the diversity of roles Methods and possibilities associated with the product. This Web environment functions as a transmedia documentation The methods I employed for this case study were network, hosting technical instructions, modification intended to analyze data drawn from the Werkstatt projects, science lessons, user forums, images, and text Workshop as an example of how transmedia networks that communicate the company ethos as a facilitator of can support user-driven innovation and what possible learning, creativity, and innovation. roles technical communicators might play in the The multimodal discourses that emerge from this process. Since these data represent a discourse-based process move beyond traditional support and instruction organization of activities and relationships pertaining to enact a site of participatory co-creation between users to the Werkstatt module, I employed discourse analytic and producers. Swarts (2015) discussed the distinction techniques, segmenting and coding data drawn from the between stabilization knowledge, which “freezes or Workshop portal, to examine the multimodal resources standardizes and creates an abstraction of an otherwise present and the contexts in which they appear. To orient messy reality,” and possibility knowledge, which “deals the Workshop discourses within the context of both with the uncertainty of the task situation, the network- transmedia communication and the wider social field like confluence and influence of other factors” (p. 20). of user-driven production and innovation, I drew upon While traditional documentation employs stabilization Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of discourse, knowledge to clarify specific task-based processes, a which positions the text as reflexively situated within transmedia network can support possibility knowledge: a discursive practice and which, in turn, occurs in the emergent discourses that “rely on the agent or the wider context of social practice (Fairclough, 1990, p. 72). practitioner to display, represent, and assemble in a According to this schema, the Workshop “text” way that responds to the particularities of the situation” (written discourse, images, audio, etc.) occurs within (Swarts, 2015, p. 21). The process of innovation, the multimodal, participatory discourse practice (after particularly user-driven innovation, is inherently messy Fairclough, 1990, p. 5) of transmedia communication. and rife with contingencies that are necessarily excluded This discourse practice arises within the social practice from task-driven, stabilizing discourses. Although of user-driven production and innovation, in which individual lessons and projects within the Workshop individuals rely on open knowledge networks to fashion do provide linear, step-by-step instructions, as a whole, technological solutions to personal or localized needs the network functions as a locus of contingency, an that are underserved by mass production. In order to arena where possibilities can be tested, progress can be make connections between the Workshop discourses documented, and innovations can be expanded upon. and the wider dimensions in which they take place, There is also a vibrant Do-It-Yourself (D.I.Y.) I developed a textual coding scheme based on Gee’s culture associated with Moog products and analog (2014) seven building tasks of language: significance, synthesizers in general. Countless user forums activities, identities, relationships, politics, connections, discuss modification projects for both classic analog and sign systems and knowledge (p. 10). These building synthesizers and project kits like the Werkstatt. The tasks provide a basic framework for examining how early days of the Moog company are part of the history language use both constructs and reflects the reality of of this culture. The company’s founder, Bob Moog, the context in which it occurs (Gee, 2014, p. 97). My was an early pioneer of the synthesizer, designing his coding scheme and data segmentation are explained in first prototypes at home in his garage (Pinch & Trocco, the Data Analysis section below. 2009, p. 6). This anecdote is featured in multiple instances within the Workshop to emphasize the Data Selection importance of the hobbyist, or user-innovator, to the As a musician and synthesizer enthusiast, I have had Moog story. The company actively works to cultivate a long-running personal interest in Moog’s products and maintain this community of user-innovators, both and history. I have always found Moog’s product in online discourses and at annual festivals, where documentation to be particularly concise and well- attendees can be both spectators and participants in designed. However, with the Werkstatt, it was clear synthesizer production, modification, and performance. the documentation was encouraging a different sort of

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activity than just musical performance. The unit came and reflecting the contextual reality of the workshop. with a two-page set of assembly instructions, but, to I annotated the T-units with descriptive codes drawn fully explore the capabilities and possibilities of the from Gee’s (2014) seven building tasks of language: Werkstatt, users must visit the online Workshop. significance, activities, identities, relationships, politics, I selected the Werkstatt Workshop as a case study connections, and sign systems and knowledge (pp. 11– of a transmedia network not only for the diversity 18). These codes were intended to identify discursive of multimodal resources it contains but also the elements in the workshop as reflexive (constructing/ intersectionality of user roles it supports. Different reflecting) evidence of the wider social practice in which forums, projects and lessons within the network are they occur. variously addressed to the musician, engineer, educator, For each code applied to a unit of text, I made learner, maker, and programmer. Although each of these notes on how the textual data correlated with different roles is accommodated individually within dedicated building tasks. For example, consider the following sections of the network, considerable overlap between segment, taken from a section of the Werkstatt topics and applications suggests a fluidity, allowing the Workshop dedicated to 3D printing projects, and its user to move between them and incorporate or exclude corresponding codes. This section of the Workshop offers different roles and processes, based on her expectations a collection of 3D printing files that can be used to print and interests. enclosure cases for different Werkstatt components. The This fluidity of roles is part of what makes a segment below is taken from an introductory paragraph. transmedia network an effective support system for user-driven innovation. User innovators may, As 3D printers become more ubiquitous in maker at different stages, become inventors, designers, spaces, fab labs, and even in the home, Moog manufacturers, and distributors, all the while encourages everyone to explore these new technologies. drawing on knowledge resources supplied by other • Significance: situating Moog as patron of maker user innovators working through similar transitions. culture, joining corporate and cultural narratives By coordinating multimodal knowledge resources • Activities: exploring, encouraging within an open, participatory schema of user roles, • Relationships: locations of practice, opening the field the Werkstatt Workshop provides an example of how of experimentation to all levels of expertise by creating discourse can be both constitutive of and constituted by common ground between the lab and the home the social reality of user innovation. • Identities: Moog as the facilitator of exploration, user as experimenter Data Analysis Since both textual and visual discourse are important to Although I observed each of these seven building how language constructs reality within the Workshop, tasks throughout the Workshop, in a variety of media my analysis included both text and images. Although formats and discursive contexts, some tasks yielded I examined these two different forms of discourse more consistent practical insights than others. After an within the same social context, I employed different initial round of exploratory coding, I felt that to try frameworks to approach them. In my initial stage and discuss all seven tasks within a single case study of data collection, I transcribed the text from each would be unwieldy and repetitive. Instead, based on page of the Werkstatt workshop into a spreadsheet, patterns that emerged from this exploratory coding, including project instructions, lesson content, user I refined my analysis to focus on the three building forum discussions, as well as introductory, expository tasks that were the most consistent and pervasive in and promotional passages provided by Moog to situate constructing and reflecting the three-dimensional and explain the Werkstatt kit and the Workshop portal. context of the Workshop. I segmented these texts into T-units (a T-unit, or • Identities: How does language build identities minimally terminable unit, consists of an independent within the network? What identities does the clause and the dependent clauses attached to it) in order network construct for users to inhabit and what to divide the discourse into distinct expressions that I identities do users ascribe to themselves, one could code according to the role they played in building another, and the network as a whole?

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• Relationships: How is language used to form social Results relationships? What do the discourses in the Workshop say about the relationships among users Each of Gee’s (2014) seven building tasks can be as well as among Moog, users, and the Werkstatt associated with an area of reality that language itself? What role do different media play in these constructs. In the case of the Werkstatt Workshop, relationships? attention to Identities, Relationships, and Sign Systems • Sign Systems and Knowledge: How do different sign and Knowledge reveals not only how the network systems represent different types of knowledge constructs a particular reality for its users but also some and ways of knowing? How does the transmedia of the affordances and potentialities that distinguish it network coordinate different systems of from traditional models of support and documentation. communication to build and apply knowledge? Identities Each of these building tasks represents ways in In examining Identities, as Gee (2014) explained, we are which the network engages the user, as well as how looking at how rhetors use language “to get recognized users participate by interacting with one another and as taking on a certain identity or role…to build an the network itself. Through data segmentation and identity in the here and now” (p. 11). Throughout the descriptive coding, I traced each of these tasks across Workshop, the discourses supplied by Moog both create the Workshop to identify patterns that characterize a space for users to inhabit certain identities as well as transmedia knowledge management and its relationship construct an identity for the company itself. In turn, to user-driven innovation. users not only inhabit these identities but enact their I applied these same descriptive codes in my own within the context of the user forums, identifying examination of images, illustrations, and video clips themselves to the network with respect to their skills, found in the Workshop. As a framework for visual interests, and experiences. language, I drew on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996) The discourse supplied by Moog offers the user an grammar of visual design, particularly their discussion abundance of identities to inhabit: musician, engineer, of representation, interaction, and the position of maker, educator, and learner. Moog repeatedly suggests the viewer (pp. 114–143). According this concept of these identities for the user and invites him or her to visual grammar, visual language involves two kinds of self-identify as one or another. The submission form for participants and three kinds of relations. Participants are user-generated modification projects begins by asking either represented (people, places, and things depicted in the user to select from a list: an image) or interactive (people communicating through an image, i.e., producer and viewer). Relationships I consider myself a: (Musician) (Educator) (Maker) of images may be between represented participants, (Student) (Artist) (Engineer) (Moog, n.d.) between represented and interactive participants, or between interactive participants (Kress & Van Leeuwen, The identity the user selects is then featured 1996, p. 114). The details of a given image, such as the alongside his or her modification project on the site. vertical and horizontal angles between interactive and By inviting users to assume these roles, the network represented participants or the direction of the gaze, can engages in what Machin and Mayr (2012) called be interpreted as grammatical evidence of social relations “functionalization,” depicting subjects “in terms of between image and viewer, or viewer and producer. what they do” (p. 81). In this case, functionalization My interpretation of images and video content in the can have the effect of granting legitimacy to the identity workshop draws on this framework to understand these a user assumes. Whatever a person does in his or her elements as visual language, taking part in the building day-to-day occupation and activity, however tenuous or tasks that construct and reflect the contextual reality. For provisional his or her engagement with the underlying example, an analysis of a tutorial video might consider disciplines associated with these roles, within the whether the instructor makes eye contact with the confines of the network, he or she is free to enact this viewer as grammatical evidence of relationship building. identity and be recognized as such.

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The synthesizer itself is also associated with these is both more expansive and more specific than the identities. An introductory statement on the Workshop documentation provided by Moog alone. home page explains: This identity work also reflects the complexity of the relationship between content and learning that arises Analog synthesizers have long had their own within the workshop. While the lessons and projects maker culture born of curious engineers, physicists provided by Moog create an initial knowledge base, the and hobbyists who have created and crafted their remainder of the content, that which arises through sounds through electronic experimentation.(Moog, user contribution and discussion, is largely driven by n.d., https://www.werkstattworkshop.com/ identity enactment, which, in this case, includes both what-werkstatt-workshop) status claims as well as the “near evangelical” desire to share skills learned through doing, which Gershenfeld The user, through possession of the Werkstatt kit, (2007) and Lim (2017) both discuss. This suggests a role is thus legitimated within a culture and a tradition of for technical communicators not just as content creators similarly functionalized predecessors. but as knowledge workers who can understand and These processes of identity construction and moderate the participatory resources enabling discursive enactment are not limited to text discourse. Throughout identity enactment. the network, multimodal resources support the activities associated with different user identities. Topographic Relationships diagrams and video tutorials guide engineers through By using discourse to enact these various identities— modification projects. Topological schematics and musician, engineer, newbie, expert, etc.— users illustrations also help learners understand principles also form relationships with one another and with of synthesis and electrical engineering. 3D printing the network itself. Throughout the network, Moog files enable makers to fabricate their own hardware assumes the role of the benevolent facilitator, providing enclosures. Musicians can listen to audio files of popular opportunity and encouragement: songs that feature Moog synthesizers and learn how to replicate the sounds. By exploring the Werkstatt Moog Music encourages all that are interested to share through the Workshop resources, the user is free to their Werkstatt mods with the community. move among these roles, validating each identity by utilizing the media resources associated with it. Moog encourages everyone to explore these new Users not only participate in the identities that technologies.(Moog, n.d.) the Moog discourses suggest but also self-identify in relation to topics discussed in the forums. Within the modification projects, the relationship Inexperienced users often preface forum questions by between the network and the user is reflected by a shift saying “I’m a newbie” and “just got my first synth,” into the first-person plural: while self-identified “experts” appear in numerous forms to answer questions and clarify instructions. In the For this mod we will be pulling from the power supply Arduino software section of the forum, a user with the taps… alias codewizard58 offered the following: Once our connections match those of Figure 2… I am an experienced programmer and have been doing Arduino projects since mid 2012. If you need help… For our arpeggiator we will be using…” (Moog, n.d.) then I can help you. (Moog, n.d.) This shift to first person frames the activities within In this way, users enact identity to create self- the Workshop as a community action, a collaboration organizing hierarchies, where expert users build between the user and the network. It also reflects what status and inexperienced users are encouraged to Fairclough (1992) identified astransitivity (p. 170). participate through example. The result is an engaged Transitivity refers to how subjects are represented as acting user community creating knowledge content that (or not acting). Traditional documentation, supporting

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David Mueller standard operations under stable circumstances (Swarts, by contradictions between text discourse and image 2015, p. 20), is often framed in imperative or passive content. Moog takes great pains to stress inclusivity constructions. The user is directed to act in accordance and accessibility in its language, continually reiterating with the desired task; no further relationship is necessary. that “everyone” is encouraged to participate and that By framing instructional processes in the first-person “any user” can build and modify the Werkstatt with plural, active voice, the Workshop suggests a shared “minimal tools and expertise” (Moog, n.d.). However, agency between user and network, a common goal. This this message of inclusivity is contradicted by image goal requires more than simple task completion; it builds discourses running across the network. In tutorial relationships, a network in which experimentation and videos, photos from live workshops, and profiles of innovation can be expected to occur. As such, providing company representatives, every individual pictured is technical support for this goal extends beyond task-based male and white. Moog may stress inclusion for all, but instruction to include concerns of ethos and identity that its own visual statements tell a different story. are central to a particular type of relationship building. Nevertheless, relationships among network users This facilitator-user relationship is also reflected in play out across self-organizing hierarchies, with less the visual rhetoric of images depicting Moog technicians experienced users appealing to expert users for help in and representatives on the site. In both profile pictures navigating problems and questions within the network and tutorial videos, these representatives make direct eye discourses. Across the forum, several expert users contact with the viewer. Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) respond to questions again and again, adding value to characterized this perspectival relationship as a “demand,” the forum interactions beyond the content that Moog wherein “the participant’s gaze demands that the viewer originally provided. Even when users correct errors enter into some kind of imaginary relation with him or within the official instruction texts, they are careful to her” (p. 118). This demand creates an imaginary social reaffirm the value of the network. relationship between the viewer and the representative, positioning them as members of the same discourse Hi, there is a small error in the Fritzing scheme: community. Furthermore, the camera angle suggests output is from digital pin 1, in the schedule it is noted they are on equal footing within this community. In as pin RX0. Great projects! Really well thought out, both videos and static profile images, the representatives introduced and documented! (Moog, n.d.) are shot at eye level, a point of view that Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) identified as “one of equality…[because] These expressions of support help to build a there is no power difference involved” (p. 140). sense of community and camaraderie that Swarts However, within the relationships that the network (2015) associated with “quality interactions” constructs, there are subtle clues to power dynamics, within a help forum (p. 23). A sense of common especially with regard to ownership. Moog identifies interest, engendered through discourse, motivates the user as the owner of the hardware: “everything else participants to contribute their time and expertise involved with learning and modifying your Werkstatt.” to solving problems within the network. This model However, the information network, the Workshop differs significantly from a transactional model of itself, is “Moog Music’s interactive creative learning documentation in that it is ongoing. Rather than a portal.” As such, the user is positioned as the consumer, single (or even iterative) set of prescribed instructions, who owns a material device that finds its actualization users leverage their relationships to solve contingent within the knowledge network, which is the domain problems that arise in personalized contexts of learning of the facilitator. Thus, the user is dependent on the and experimentation within the network. While facilitator to grasp the full potential of the technical technical communicators might have a limited role object. This sense of Moog’s ownership of the as content creators in this network, there is ongoing knowledge network is visually reinforced throughout work to be done in order to maintain the channels the Workshop by the repeated appearance of the Moog in which these relationships take place, as well as logo in page layouts, illustrations, and photographs. in coordinating knowledge resources to help solve There are also visual cues to potential power problems that are too complex or obscure to be differentials within network relationships, evidenced worked out through user interactions.

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Sign Systems and Knowledge Users also participate in building conceptual One of the most remarkable aspects of the Workshop is connections through sign systems. In the forum thread how it integrates many different sign systems and ways for Arduino software projects, users post examples of of knowing within a single network. By switching and their programing code and ask for help in finding errors. combining different sign systems, the workshop builds Elsewhere, users post videos and schematics detailing conceptual connections both within the network and their own modification projects. In each case, the choice beyond, with cultural traditions with which the network of media aligns with the user’s rhetorical goals. One user hopes to identify. For instance, the Werkstatt is named shares patch sheets, which are schematic illustrations that after the German word for “workshop.” The decision other participants can use as an engineering resource: to use a German word likely results from the original Here’s my template for a Werkstatt patch sheet and conditions under which the unit was released: as part of some simple patches I made in my first day with it. a special in-person workshop held at the 2014 Moogfest Please feel free to use it and post your own patches. music festival, which was headlined by the German Yet another participant takes this idea a step further, electronic music pioneers (and early Moog adapters) demonstrating the true transformative potential of a Kraftwerk. The group has long espoused a stylized “retro transmedia network: futurist” aesthetic (Buckley, 2015, p. 118), grounded in minimalism and modernism. By choosing to name The patch sheet idea inspired me. I took the idea and their synthesizer kit the Werkstatt, Moog creates an ran with it producing a web page that allows you to intertextual connection between the project (and, by adjust the settings with the mouse. Then using Web extension, its participants) and the outsized reputation Audio I added a crude approximation of the sound. Kraftwerk possesses within the culture of electronic (Moog, n.d.) music. Thus, the Werkstatt is positioned as a material link between the user and the Kraftwerk aesthetic. This post links to a software emulation of the The Workshop also builds connections through sign Werkstatt unit, translating a material technical systems. In what amounts to the Workshop’s mission object into a virtual software application. Through statement, the network is named “WerskstattWorkshop. this transformation, users who do not even own the com (beta),” creating a hybrid of English and hypertext Werkstatt can participate vicariously in the community markup language: by accessing a software emulation of the unit. This mixing and reconfiguring of sign systems WerkstattWorkshop.com (beta) is Moog Music’s creates not only new possibilities but new contingencies. interactive creative learning portal… (Moog, n.d.) The original designers of the Werkstatt could not have accounted for (or documented) the complex, networked By referring to the site’s html address, its identity reality of the Workshop. Within the forums, users take as a product of the Web (and its related discourses of up the task of managing this “possibility knowledge” participation and interactivity) is highlighted. However, with varying degrees of success. Questions raised in many in the workshop’s actual html address, no capital threads go answered and certain questions appear in letters are displayed. They are included here to both multiple locations, sometimes only finding an answer in a increase legibility and foreground the brand name of single location. As Swarts (2015) noted in his discussion this knowledge product. Furthermore, by including of user forums, such contingencies present an opportunity the designation “beta,” this nominalization draws for technical communicators to act as facilitators who on discourses of open source software, where beta is “help diffuse into these user communities not technical identified with platforms still engaged in testing and communication artifacts but rather a sensibility or a development. It is significant to note that after almost process of doing technical communication work” (p. 27). five years in existence, the portal still retains the “beta” designation. This may be an attempt to communicate a Transmedia and the Technical Communicator state of never-ending, open development. On the other hand, it may be evidence of inattention, or unrealized The preceding analysis demonstrates how different ambitions, on the part of the facilitator. discourses circulating within the Werkstatt Workshop

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David Mueller go beyond simply documenting system processes boundaries between different media resources, different to construct a world in which network participants areas of knowledge, different roles and identities. The enact identities, form relationships, and reconfigure means to cross these boundaries, the network itself, is information across media boundaries. This network constructed by information technology but made vital is a site for both learning and innovation, a place by cooperation and knowledge sharing. Through such where the potentialities of the Werkstatt hardware actions, participants are able to renegotiate technological can be explored, communicated, and expanded. affordances within personal and localized contexts that Since the Workshop was created directly by the are excluded from industrial scale production. This is hardware manufacturer, there are traditional what makes transmedia networks such a productive knowledge management roles available to technical framework to support user-driven innovation. communicators: instructions must be designed, content More than any discrete tool or static document, must be organized, certain user goals and needs must be the transmedia network is a space of possibility, a anticipated. But this is only part of the work that must workbench from which users can access and move freely be done. between technological and informational resources that A more important role may be situated among the enable discovery and invention. connections and transformations that take place within By connecting participatory cultures of use (such the network. In looking at user forums, Swarts (2015) as gardeners and musicians) to equally participatory suggested that technical communicators can act as cultures of design and innovation (such as engineers, facilitators, maintaining the community, articulating software programmers, and entrepreneurs) within a tasks, structuring answers, and managing interpersonal single continuous information network that allows them communications (pp. 20–21). In order for a discourse to directly share resources and ideas, the transmedia community to function, the participants must be able network has the potential to disrupt aspects of the to reasonably expect a return on their investment of industrial production cycles that have traditionally time and resources. For some users, this return involves alienated these stakeholders from one another. These new knowledge; for others, elevated status within the cycles have often had the effect of concentrating community; and still others, simply the pleasure of social power in large networks that claim proprietary sharing knowledge and experience. Whatever the goal, domain over the intersections of design, production, the network must provide evidence that fulfillment and manufacture on a global scale. However, emerging is possible, that others are participating and finding technologies of digital communication and personal some measure of success. While such evidence may fabrication are creating alternatives to industrial arise directly from user interactions for some time, production, allowing users to design, fabricate, and facilitating and maintaining these interactions will share innovations that can start small and build toward a require serious attention, both from an administrative larger scale (Anderson, 2012, pp. 19–21). and critical perspective. As administrators, technical We all have a stake in the intersection of networked communicators can help ensure that users can find the communication and innovation technologies. information they need, develop relationships they value, While technical communicators may have seen their and enact identities that align with their goals. traditional domain shrink as users increasingly generate Although the forum is a crucial component of the their own documentation, new opportunities are transmedia network, the network as a whole serves a unfolding. Arthur (2009) suggested that technology different rhetorical function than a traditional user help as a whole is shifting away from large scale industrial forum. Participants in a transmedia network do more production, “from single purpose fixed machines into than just solve task-related problems. As the Workshop raw functionalities that can be programmed to different demonstrates, they create identities, form relationships, purposes, in different combinations” (p. 209). If this and become personally invested in the technological is indeed the case, our systems of documentation processes in which they participate. The goals they will undergo a similar shift: from static documents pursue are not always easily defined, nor are they limited explicating prescribed procedures to open networks to any particular technological task. To learn and that support and enable development, iteration, innovate, participants must be able to move across the and transformation.

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References Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). London, Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The new industrial UK: Routledge. revolution (1st ed.). New York, NY: Crown Lim, K. Y. T. (2017). Landscapes of participatory Business. Retrieved from https://catalog.lib.ncsu. making, modding and hacking: Maker culture and edu/record/NCSU2708032 makerspaces. Newcastle Upon Tyne, England: Arthur, W. B. (2009). The nature of technology: What it Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Retrieved from is and how it evolves (1st Free Press hardcover ed.). https://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/record/NCSU3893854 New York, NY: Free Press. Retrieved from https:// Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/record/NCSU2245500 discourse analysis: A multimodal introduction (1st Buckley, D. (2015). Kraftwerk: Publikation (1st ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. edition). London, UK: Overlook-Omnibus. Pinch, T., & Trocco, F. (2009). Analog days: The Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. invention and impact of the Moog Synthesizer. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Retrieved from Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. https://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/record/NCSU793795 Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/ Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: lib/ncsu/detail.action?docID=3300076 Theory and method (4th ed.). Abingdon, England: Sheridan, D. M. (2010). Fabricating consent: Three- Routledge. Retrieved from https://catalog.lib.ncsu. dimensional objects as rhetorical compositions. edu/record/NCSU3048377 Computers and Composition, 27(4), 249–265. Gershenfeld, N. (2007). Fab: The coming revolution on https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2010.09.005 your desktop—From personal computers to personal Swarts, J. (2015). What do user forums teach us about fabrication (New edition). New York, NY: Basic documentation and the value added by technical com- Books. municators? Technical Communication, 62(1), 19–28. Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence culture : where old von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. and new media collide (Updated ed.). New York, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved from N.Y. : New York University Press, 2008. https://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/record/NCSU1881407 Johnson, R. R. (1998). User-centered technology. Albany: Werkstatt Workshop. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// State University of New York Press. www.werkstattworkshop.com/ Johnson-Eilola, J. (1996). Relocating the value of work: Yeats, D. (2008). The role for technical communicators Technical communication in a post industrial age. in open-source software development. Technical Technical Communication Quarterly, 5(3), 245–270. Communication. 55(1), 38–48. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq0503_1 Kimball, M. A. (2006). Cars, culture, and tactical About the Author technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 15(1), 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1207/ David Mueller is a graduate of North Carolina State s15427625tcq1501_6 University’s masters degree in technical communication. Kimball, M. A. (2017). The golden age of technical He currently works as a technical writer at IBM, where communication. Journal of Technical Writing and he writes about open source software development, Communication, 47(3), 330–358. https://doi. microservices architecture, and voice-assisted technology, org/10.1177/0047281616641927 among other subjects. He is also a musician and producer Kinder, M. (1991). Playing with power in movies, who has performed across the US and Europe, and television, and video games: From Muppet Babies to whose compositions have appeared in television and film. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Berkeley: University He is available at [email protected]. of California Press. Retrieved from https://catalog. lib.ncsu.edu/record/NCSU780829 Manuscript received 28 August 2018, revised 23 April 2019; Kinder, M. (2016). Transmedia networks. Retrieved from accepted 13 May 2019. http://www.marshakinder.com/concepts/o11.html

256 Technical Communication l Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 Applied Research Communally Designed Deception: Participatory Technical Communication Practices in an Amateur Game Design Community By Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton

Abstract Purpose: As it is often difficult to study professional game design practices from a technical communication perspective, this exploratory study seeks to discover accessible alternatives in amateur communities engaged in participatory design. Methods: Using an exploratory, mixed methods single-case study model, we analyzed discourse and technical communication practices in a community focused on designing and playing social deception games across a network of digital platforms, with an eye toward how administrators, designers, and players negotiated design challenges. Results: The amateur game design community observed here participates in professional design practices that can be mapped onto Eyman’s (2008) framework for technical communication in games. Communities such as the subject-participants in this study produce unique documentation tracing design processes in ways some professional studios do not (Sansone, 2014) and foreground user experience considerations in observable, archived discussions. Conclusion: Amateur game design communities are as interested in maintaining strong user experiences and balanced gameplay as professional studios, as indicated by this study, and may use similar tactics to achieve results. The comparisons allowed construction of a framework for comparing amateur and professional designs in terms of tech comm practices. For technical communicators who must understand and account for world-making processes, demonstrating how amateur practice may compare to professional practice opens up new potential sites of study in the service of constructing game design ecologies. Keywords: game design ecology, participatory design, professional practice, social gaming, transmedia

Practitioner’s • Amateur communities engaged of the same product goals and qualities Takeaway: in game design may demonstrate as professional game design studios. professional practice, despite utilizing • For budding communities, students, different approaches, platforms, and educators, or would-be designers, technologies, and may be fruitful sites robust communities like MafiEra, with for study. their networks of communication and • Although amateur communities wealth of user-generated materials and are not driven by the need to entice documentation, offer a window into consumers into engaging with a practices that can be modeled; amateur product, they are still focused on design communities represent a unique particular goals of player engagement opportunity to learn and practice game and enjoyment, and so privilege many design outside of the games industry.

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Introduction study: participatory amateur design communities creating recurring games that inspire both a cycle of feedback Scholars have been arguing for studying games in and reams of documentation tracking the entire process, technical communication for almost two decades. almost all of which is publicly available online. Utilizing A few studies (McAllister, 2004; Lamberti & two years’ worth of game design and user experience Richards, 2012) have considered links between games feedback, we analyze technical communication practices (particularly digital games) and rhetoric, and others and world-building on both a game and community (McDaniel, 2009; Mason, 2013; deWinter & Vie, scale in one such example, MafiEra, an amateur design 2014) have explored key relationships between games community dedicated to making and playing online and technical communication through the lenses of social deception games. Drawing on Spinuzzi’s (2003) procedural training, interfaces, technical genres, and genre ecology work, Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña’s documentation (respectively). Still, there remains a (2014) description of a single case study within a situated great deal for technical communication scholars to learn context and site, as well as Gee’s (2014) Making Strange about the games industry, particularly with regard to toolkit, our study combines community discourse with actual design practice. other game-related artifacts to present a community Citing the games industry’s wide economic and functioning similarly to a professional studio, only visible cultural reach, the necessary interplay between users and rather than hidden, with all decisions, debates, and interfaces, the potential for large-scale understandings discussions on full display. of users’ navigation of complex communication tasks, and the “real world” applications possible when The Challenge of Studying Game Design technical communication practices are examined For technical communication scholars, the games through the lens of game ecologies, Eyman (2008) industry could offer a great deal of potential—potential made the case for the relationship between games and particularly relevant to students—yet insider practices, technical communication (p. 243). More recently, behaviors, and discussions in the design space are often McDaniel and Daer (2016) took up this call to bring opaque (Karabinus & Atherton, 2018; McDaniel & together games and technical communication in their Daer, 2016). Indeed, designer decisions may even be study of n-Space, an independent game development purposely obfuscated to protect development teams studio (now closed), focusing on developers’ technical from online harassment from disgruntled customers communication practices rather than specifically on or bad actors (Schreier, 2017), which makes building the games themselves. Writing was a key practice Mason’s (2013) game design ecology difficult. So while they studied, but many of their findings dwelt on the technical communication is well positioned to enter interpersonal and communicative challenges faced the larger game studies pantheon via analysis of the by employees in an organization that must be highly broader games industry, due to the field’s unique ability flexible and structurally malleable, due to the intense to study work and fan practices, user experience, and work demands of the game industry. Reimer (2017), interface design (deWinter & Vie, 2016), gaining access like Sherlock (2014), similarly analyzed developer to the kinds of documentation and practices we need discourse at Riot Games, utilizing developers’ patch to see to perform that analysis is difficult (Karabinus & notes and communications with players on forums like Atherton, 2018). Reddit, but his study is still confined only to what the Reimer’s 2017 study reveals the biggest issue developers choose to present to the public. scholars face when trying to study game design These relatively few studies make strides toward practices: the gaps between what can be seen and understanding how technical communication can map observed, and what remains behind closed doors. Riot onto the gaming industry, but, as we will argue, this Games developers often participate in conversations work is difficult; McDaniel and Daer (2016) wrote that, with players on the Reddit forum dedicated to League “due to the proprietary, competitive nature of game of Legends discussion. Players report experiences, development,” gaining access to game developers is a speculate on the game’s future, and make suggestions real barrier to scholars wanting to research in this area for changes, while developers comment (or not) as (p. 157). In this study, we offer a potential new site for they see fit. Reimer (2017) included one of the latter

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Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton exchanges in his examination of the iterations of consultants). Most hidden discussions become public Lucian, one of the game’s playable heroes. A player after the completion of a game. suggests adjustments to Lucian, and former Riot Games Games at MafiEra are run in sets referred to as designer Daniel Z. Klein responds, reporting that “seasons.” Each season begins with one or two flagship some of these ideas had “been suggested around the games, usually based on popular media franchises, such office a bit, but [were] ultimately rejected” (p. 253). as Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. Several other games Beyond what Klein chooses to reveal, readers are not follow, and each season may end with a larger or more privy to those discussions; we have no way to witness unusual game. Seasons last from two to six months, are the negotiation or the pros and cons of any particular carefully curated to offer a balance of game styles, and adjustment. To study decision-making practices in are designed with new player recruitment and retention game design, researchers must find a way to observe in mind; one project team manages this scheduling, those very discussions, the practices in the moment, choosing the order of games and maintaining a system unfiltered through public-facing reporting (Karabinus that determines which players are selected to play in & Atherton, 2018). As a solution to this challenge, each game and which are relegated to the back-up list of we present amateur game design communities as players available to replace those who may need to leave viable alternative sites for research. Our subject, the an in-progress game. MafiEra community, engages in ongoing participatory Each season features a sign-up thread, called an game design, and we have adapted a framework for OT, or Official Thread, in which upcoming games are determining its fitness, and the fitness of similar introduced for participants to express interest. After each communities, for professional comparison. season, administrators post a review discussion in which the community talks through issues from the season, Participants, Work, and Play such as game balance, player-proposed rule changes, and The MafiEra community is one of dozens of groups player experience. For our purposes, one of the primary designing, facilitating, and playing asynchronous advantages of this kind of community is that these forum-based social deception games (Karabinus major actions are visible and already exist in archive & Atherton, 2018). These games, unlike the party form; in the MafiEra community, player feedback and game version of social deception games, may take game design discussions are also visible and archived days or weeks to complete, and each game produces in these post-season review threads, making the in- hundreds of individual messages. Community the-moment iterative decision-making process fully members play but also fulfill all the functional roles available and thus creating a viable site for researchers that might be observed in a professional gaming studio: to study game aspects like design adjustments, delays, administrators (executives) and project managers, game discussions of mechanics and balance, narrative framing, designers, and reviewers (Q&A testers). The result is a and cancellation of ideas that prove unworkable. community engaging in iterative, participatory online Similar to the work of McDaniel and Daer (2016) with design with high player expectations for game balance n-Space, analysis of amateur communities like MafiEra and strong attention to user experience. may provide insight into professional design practices The MafiEra community is housed within the (Karabinus & Atherton, 2018). ResetEra discussion forum (since late 2017), and games are primarily played on this main forum, with all Participatory Design as discussions publicly accessible for forum members and Transmedia Storytelling nonmembers alike. A satellite site, Outer Mafia, provides Scholars have used various terminology and definitions support for extra discussion threads for individual games for Jenkins’s (2003) concept of transmedia storytelling; (such as secret chats for mafia teams), as well as hidden for instance, Bechmann Petersen (2006) used cross media, discussion threads for mentors tutoring new players and Boumans (2004) used hybrid media, and Klastrup and places for spectators to discuss ongoing games without Toska (2004) used transmedial worlds. Jenkins (2009) disrupting play. The satellite forum also hosts hidden himself cited Dena’s (2009) cross-media and Rose’s (2012) discussion for developing games, as designers work deep media, saying they were essentially all the same with reviewers (who serve as Q&A testers and design concept. At a keynote in 2013, Jenkins explained that his

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term transmedia was really just a placeholder, as was his technical communication scholars’ ideas about how original definition, and that the term also became quickly to contextualize game design in the wider landscape embedded in Hollywood labor struggles regarding of professional writing, especially when it is tempting payment practices for the various content workers would to understand games as singular textual objects to be produce in differing media for a given franchise. So, played. The need to understand the different kinds while Jenkins (2006) defined transmedia storytelling as of work that form the game design ecology can be “[unfolding] across multiple media platforms, with each best understood through Spinuzzi’s (2002) framing new text making a distinctive and valuable addition to of genre ecology analysis as a way to study the day- the whole,” where “each medium does what it does best” to-day processes of discussion, documentation, and and “each franchise entry needs to be self-contained” so iteration as representations of how work happens, and, that “any given product [will be] a point of entry into the as Eyman (2008) argued, framing game design within franchise as a whole” in Convergence Culture (pp. 95–96), this idea of ecology “moves [scholars] from games-as- the definition has since been widened to focus more on objects-of-literary-study to games-as-designed-worlds” the multiple media and coherent whole elements and less (p. 246). This shift makes game design practices the on the franchise element. key object of interest, rather than restricting study This definitional shift opens more space for to the games themselves, and opens up the wider participatory culture, and it is from this angle that scope of communities and practices as viable sites for we approach the concept of transmedia in this study. research. We see this definition as also opening up Members of the MafiEra community engage in practices space for understanding game design as practicing of worldbuilding and participatory design that function transmediation, especially when, as in the case of the on two main levels: first, at the gameworld level, MafiEra community we examine here, much of the designers often create games based on popular media work of design crosses between media spaces. properties, in which the game itself becomes a fanfiction- like entry into the franchise’s transmedia world, and, Mapping Professional Practice onto second, at the community level, members in all roles Participatory Design Communities participate in creating the “world” of MafiEra through The gap that still exists between game design and iterative rule design and extensive documentation technical communication in much of the existing across various media. MafiEra has its own language, for literature seems to be related to the obfuscation of game instance, a language sometimes shared with the larger design practices in professional studios that we have online mafia community and that sometimes diverges detailed above; mapping our existing conceptions of from the common language through community-driven technical and professional communication onto the nuance. For instance, in the larger mafia language, practices common in game design studios is close to a “doctor” is a role that can protect a player from an impossible without access. To further study the link attempted elimination, and the “town” or “village” are the between game design and technical communication and so-called good guys, the uninformed majority attempting with the concept of game design as ecology in mind, we to solve the game. In the MafiEra community’s unique will seek to answer the following research questions: language, however, a “gamerunner” (who may be a 1. Can amateur game communities with visible facilitator elsewhere) is often the designer who also design practices be used as accurate cognates for administers a game, and “lunch” (as in “let’s lunch that professional game design practices? If so, what guy!”) has been adopted as a humorous replacement technical communication practices can be observed for the common mafia term “lynch” in order to remove through the development of rules and play in the racially charged language from the game (Karabinus & MafiEra community? Atherton, in press). 2. How can observations of the MafiEra community help contribute to the construction of a wider Game Design as Ecology games design ecology? The ecological metaphor for game design that we 3. How can the study of community participation take up in this study has ties to genre ecologies and iterative design in persistent, ongoing (Spinuzzi, 2003; Mason, 2013) as well as other games and game communities help technical

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communicators expand their understanding balance for mandating player activity levels. The second of world-making beyond the notion of time frame was selected due to the community’s moving fictionalization? from one forum to another; during the move, some old members did not transition, and many new players Methods joined MafiEra, so player engagement efforts were in the foreground during this time, with player retention a To explore MafiEra’s fitness for professional comparison, primary concern as the community worked to establish we drew first from the research model that served as and maintain a firm foothold in its new home. foundational in McDaniel and Daer’s (2016) study For the changes to the activity rule in the review of n-Space. In their study, they sought to understand threads, we scraped the full discussions and isolated developer discourse, as situated in their particular everything relating to discussions of activity levels and industrial context, within the conflicts and confines of how issues should be handled, as not everything pointed the company. In order to best compare how MafiEra’s to leaning on top-down policies to improve games; discourse stacked up against a professional development game mechanics and player behavior were also frequent firm, we sought to model our work after this study topics of conversation, as well as logistical issues, like in order to pursue direct comparisons. To examine handling time zone differences for players located the overarching professional practices of the MafiEra across the world. This manual sorting also allowed us to community, like McDaniel and Daer, we developed remove banter and unrelated content, so we could focus a single-case study design suited for examining the discourse analysis on how the minimum activity rule holistic factors impacting the community’s design, developed over time. During coding, individual posts/ structure, and play patterns as reflected in both sign- replies were broken further into separate statements, up and review discussions bookending each season of with boundaries marked any time the participant games. Unlike McDaniel and Daer, however, we did changed the topic, resulting in 116 individual comments not conduct interviews, deeming it unnecessary due to related directly to the slow increase of the activity the amount of discussion we could observe in a more minimum and its impact on the community.We coded natural setting, because of the forum-based structure of these entries by using James Gee’s (2014) “Making the community. There was no need to ask community Strange” tool for discourse analysis, in an effort to members how they worked or how they felt, as these understand why and how decisions were being made moments could instead be observed firsthand. Like by the community, and what factors contributed to the Reimer (2017), we studied records of past discourse, evolving rule. but unlike with Reimer’s reporting of Riot Games The combination of review thread discourse and developers’ patch notes and forays into Reddit, community shifts allowed for a holistic portrait of the MafiEra’s unique structure allowed us to observe the MafiEra community’s approach to game design and day-to-day development practices of the community. player management. We chose the “Making Strange” In order to best observe multiple points of approach due to our own positions with relation to development and engagement within the community in the community; Alisha is a member of MafiEra, who terms of its professional practice, we collected data from joined first as a player and later became a game designer, the following streams of communication: moderator, and administrator (currently working in • Post-play review threads from seasons 4–9, covering scheduling and community management). Rachel is December 2015 through September 2017 an outsider to MafiEra but has played various forum • Sign-up discussions (where new rules and changes games for over 10 years and has designed, moderated, were debuted, along with new games) from and administrated a forum game community for the past seasons 10–12 five years. While we both had experience working with online discourse, these different approaches—informed We chose these samples because they allowed for insider and informed outsider—allowed us to look at the study of two very specific and important developments community discussions from different levels of familiarity within the community. During the time period covered and work together to tease out what needed to be by seasons 4–9, the community struggled with finding a explained, explored, and further examined. Gee’s “Making

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Strange” approach provided a baseline for our coding point of view of the participants. These postmortem and observations, but, due to our shared familiarity with review threads continue to provide the best window for reading online discourse and our understanding of proto- even this broader view in studying UX in the MafiEra professional practice within amateur communities, we community, due to the need to study players’ emotional ultimately needed very little negotiation after coding, as responses to game mechanics and events in a situated we coded with 99.4% agreement. context to get a rich sense of user experience (Sánchez, In exploring development of the activity rule in the Iranzo, & Vela, 2011). post-season discussions, we kept our coding scheme The activity rule change was ideal for our study as from the previous study (Karabinus & Atherton, 2018), opposed to some other changes in gameplay and rules but only to inform the repeated themes we observed in because of the consistency with which it was raised as iterations of the rule, so as to understand how certain an issue and how the rule evolved over multiple seasons. concepts were privileged in game and community The activity rule, and decisions around it, impacted play design within MafiEra. Those codes were: and design in various ways: Activity is related to player • Accessibility engagement and satisfaction, as well as how games • Administrative/community oversight function overall (without active discussion, mafia games • Balance & mechanics stall). Player activity levels also relate to mechanics—a • Personal conflict game that is not balanced may see less activity—as well • User experience as player recruitment and retention. At the beginning of the time period studied, the rule for participation was a Results single post during a “day” phase (approximately 24–72 real-time hours, depending on the game’s structure), Tracking discussions and developments in the and by the end of the period studied, the minimum community-wide thread allowed us to gain a sense of requirement was ten individual posts during the day what’s important for participants at all levels within phases. Studying each season allowed us to see how the MafiEra—a feature that allowed for observation of community responded to each iteration of the policy as both development processes and player reception adjustments were made. at once, compressing the player-designer feedback We each reviewed data, taking notes on themes loop and allowing for “live” observation of the kind that emerged and tracking their development. In our of rapid iteration Reimer (2017) studied with Riot previous study, we coded along strict themes, but with Games. In studying these feedback threads, we this look at micro- to macro-level developments, we observed development of ideas for player engagement, coded more holistically, allowing themes to emerge as rule changes, community management, and game we studied design practices. Because of our different mechanics as they happened, without anything left out positions relative to the community, we had varying or filtered for presentation to the public; the audience is perspectives: Rachel could easily see common amateur always both public and internal at the same time. game design processes coming through as well as Moving from study of a micro-level change (the common themes such as moderator roles and co- activity rule) to macro-level discussions of player creation of definitions of activity; Alisha, with her engagement, recruitment, and retention also allowed extensive knowledge of MafiEra, including its history, us to witness multiple angles on how the community operations, and group dynamics, was able to easily handled changes and issues within the games. From place developments into a larger web of context (which our previous study (Karabinus & Atherton, 2018), we helped in clearing up whether a particular artifact was knew that user experience concerns underscored nearly important or could be counted as less-relevant banter) all decisions made by the community, but, rather than and to offer perspective on community changes, continuing to focus only on user experience (UX) as particularly after the move to ResetEra. a lens, our expanded study here allowed for deeper exploration of how UX concerns manifested and were Continual Iteration addressed within both larger, administrative rule- With the development of the activity rule, we studied changes and within the games themselves, from the both the changing approaches to the problem of

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Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton player activity and the level of discussion within each and attention on activity fluctuated throughout the review thread. Similarly to Reimer’s (2017) study of period studied. In seasons 4 and 5, only the most basic continual iteration of the character Lucian in League of activity rule was in place for mafia games: Players had Legends, the community’s conception of the problem to speak up at least one time per phase, but there was of activity, its relationship to other aspects of the game also no set penalty for those who did not. Enforcement (such as user experience and moderator oversight), of the rule was determined on a game-by-game basis. and its possible solutions were all co-constructed by The postmortem discussion is similarly casual: In season players as they discussed the problem over the course 4 (S4), in particular, discussions around activity are of all the season review threads we studied. While generalized, entangled with other issues. For instance, Reimer’s (2017) case study of Riot Games indicated a prior to S4 (December 2015), players signed up to community in which player input was highly valued play and administrators determined which games to but still subordinate to developer decisions, MafiEra’s place them into, while, beginning in S4, players were flattened hierarchy, however, means those discussions allowed to select a preference for particular games. functioned differently. In observing MafiEra, we During review, players indicated this change may have were able to study cognates to both player-designer potentially had a positive impact on player activity relationships as well as discussions between different levels, e.g., players were more active when allowed the designers and others who functioned as “employees.” opportunity to self-select games. Other S4 activity We observed both anecdotal and data-driven discussions included: evidence provided in support of players’ proposed • The difficulty of keeping people in reserve to serve solutions, and, with time and several instances of as replacements for players who needed to drop iteration of the activity rule, it was resolved to the from an active game, while still allowing people general satisfaction of the community, as evidenced to spectate games (user experience/administrative by the drop-off in activity-related comments shown oversight) in Figure 1. While season 6 was not the end of the • Whether or not replacing players impacts the play problem, the discussion about the nature of the activity experience for others within a game (user experience/ problem there led to enough consensus that later administrative oversight) seasons’ discussions were more about optimizing the • Ensuring time commitments for games were rule with trial and error than they were about how the clear up front, before players entered a game community wanted to conceptualize activity. (administrative oversight)

In season 5 (S5) (March 2016), activity became more of a concern but was linked frequently to game balance and mechanics due to issues within a particular game (“Disney Princess”). Because that game suffered atypically low player activity, Disney Princess was discussed extensively in the review thread to determine if game balance and design was responsible for low player engagement, or if the low activity was a separate issue. But S5 also marked an important moment in the development of the activity rule, because a standard operating procedure for underperforming players entered the discourse. One player who also serves as Figure 1. Activity rule discussion frequency by season an occasional moderator and reviewer suggested the warning/replacement model that would become a rule While Figure 1 shows the number of comments in season 6 (S6). Other issues discussed in concert with on activity in each season during the period studied, activity in S5 included: we offer those numbers merely as another angle on our • Balancing player rosters with high and low activity discourse analysis, as a demonstration of how focus posters (user experience/administrative oversight)

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• Rewards and encouragement for player activity • Better definitions for activity as well as clearer (user experience/administrative oversight) expectations (administrative oversight and user • A mentoring system as a way to encourage new experience) player activity and integration (user experience/ • Links between activity and recruitment/retention administrative oversight) (user experience) • Low activity benefitting mafia teams(balance & mechanics) In seasons 7 (March 2017) and 8 (July 2017), • Comparisons of win rates to activity levels (balance activity was still discussed but significantly less than & mechanics) in S6, the peak of engagement with activity. In S7, the suggested 5 posts/phase rule gained popularity, In S6 (July 2016), data about activity levels was and many suggested it should instead be 10 posts/ heavily utilized within the discussions. Although the phase (the rule that was ultimately implemented). The MafiEra community has always paid careful attention discussions in S7 focused heavily on this idea of the to statistics, collecting data on every game, it has not most appropriate number for a minimum as players, always been used heavily in the review threads, as many designers, and administrators work to balance user players seem to prefer contributing anecdotes and experience, play style, and game requirements. experience reports to talk about community direction. S7 ultimately yielded the most direct comparisons In S6, data was used to discuss an optional shift to a to the kind of discussions invisible in a study like 5 posts per day phase rule, up from one in previous Reimer’s (2017). In MafiEra’s S7 review, we observed seasons; optional here too meant it would be up to all considerations and concerns about different gamerunners to include if they wished, rather than a implications of potential rules, as well as what penalties firm community rule. Data from past games was also should be implemented for players who did not used to compare S6 to prior seasons. S6 season had meet minimum post contribution levels. There was the highest number of individual comments about significant discussion about the impact of various player activity, and a sense of frustration imbued the solutions on the game and on player experiences. postmortem discussion; there was a general concern Players, in particular, while continuing to couch their that activity in games had been decreasing steadily suggestions in anecdotes, often stepped outside their for multiple seasons, despite active efforts to increase own experiences to discuss more overarching concepts player engagement. The discussion that began in S5, and impacts. Discussion about the activity rule in S7 about moderators following a prescribed plan of action was so focused on the overlaps between administrative when players do not meet requirements, resurfaced oversight, user experience, and game balance that little here and became a recurring theme, combining separation between these different considerations was administrative oversight and user experience in such a observed; these concerns were always entangled. way that made it clear both players and moderators/ In season 8 (S8), we observed the impact of the administrators were responsible for a smooth game new 10 posts/phase rule and activity discussion was experience. Other issues that arose around the activity focused only on whether or not the new rule worked, rule in S6 included: weighing again the intersections between administrative • Conflict within games and its impact on activity oversight, user experience, and balance. Forward- (conflict and user experience) thinking discussion considered the best way to handle • The impact of low activity on game progress penalties, with discussions about warnings for players and advancement (user experience and balance & who did not meet the minimum. Since S8, this system mechanics) for handling activity has remained largely the same, • Designing smaller games (fewer players on the with minor tweaks. roster) (administrative oversight and balance & Season 9 (S9) did not have a proper review thread, mechanics) because the season was disrupted by the move to the • Concern that some players are holding back new ResetEra forum, but review was instead conducted for fear their playstyle will not be respected or within the sign-up OT, which served as ongoing review privileged (conflict and user experience) rather than postmortem discussion. Conflict within one

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Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton game contributed to this as well, presenting an issue While several games run in the MafiEra community that needed to be immediately addressed. Discussion prior to the move to ResetEra featured custom images flared about abuse of the activity rule and what should designed to advertise the games, with the shift to be done if players followed the letter but not the spirit ResetEra, these images were more often used to of the rule. Little was resolved, but conflict was added advertise the games, serving not only as ways to anchor to the intersections of administrative oversight, user players in the world created within each game but also experience, and balance in S9’s brief review. as marketing to entice potential players to sign up. In this way, community members tell the story of MafiEra Player Recruitment and Retention on multiple levels, focusing both on the worlds of the In October 2017, the MafiEra community, along with various games and on the world of MafiEra itself, as thousands of other users, exited the NeoGAF forum in Figure 2, which combines data about MafiEra as a amid controversies over the owner and leadership forum game community and about individual games. (Alexander, 2017). The shift to the new ResetEra forum Although MafiEra’s efforts are not directly comparable presented the community with the opportunity to to professional-level marketing, they represent effort rebrand (the community had been known as Gafia, or toward expanding the audience and broadening NeoGAF Mafia) as well the challenge of rebuilding its community participation. In Figure 3, we see games playerbase, as not every member made the transition themed on television shows The Love Boat and games at the same time (or at all). Membership temporarily like inFamous and Dark Souls. dipped, but, due to the vast number of members registering for ResetEra (membership is, at the time of this writing, in excess of 40,000), numbers quickly climbed again. The need to stand out in order to recruit new players amongst other communities also restarting, is apparent in the first ResetEra sign-up thread in particular, in which messages were geared specifically to both old and new players, and sign-ups featured heavy use of images, infographics, and information about current, upcoming, and past games. The OTs during the referenced time period were developed first by ex-MafiEra administrator “spider” and, then, when spider left to focus on ResetEra moderation, by a team of administrators working in collaboration to develop clearer rules and onboarding documentation. These efforts to create more streamlined documentation serve as another example of worldbuilding, particularly in the context of attempts to recruit new players. Figure 2. Excerpt from MafiEra infographic, as published in In the landscape of the new forum community, ResetEra’s first Official Thread for signups MafiEra’s branding was a gateway for potential players; infographics, documentation, and community histories After the move to ResetEra, the community also in the OT helped demonstrate what the community had formalized a mentoring system, debuted in these OTs, to offer for potential new players. as a method for increasing new player engagement and Figure 2—while referencing insider information, retention. Although these are not design decisions that such as the names of well-known players—also serves to impact mechanics, they do further demonstrate the demonstrate the persistence of the MafiEra community. community’s commitment to continuous improvement. Since 2014, the playerbase and number of games have both grown. People keep coming back. New people Democratic Discourse stay and become returning players. The message is clear: To understand MafiEra as transmediated and ResetEra newcomers, don’t you want to play a game? participatory, we had to look holistically at the

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Figure 3. Past themed mafia games presented in an OT as recruitment attempt for new games and players

community’s methods for worldbuilding. Because observations contribute to the contstruction of a there are no prescribed guidelines or formal models more robust game design ecology? for running such a community, “worldbuilding” here • How can this study contribute to researchers’ views involves every decision made by participants, in every of game design practices? Can these observations role, from players to administrators. In doing anything, contribute to a broader sense of “world-making?” the community’s participants construct everything. Because of that, hierarchical roles diminish somewhat In trying to establish MafiEra (and similar in the season-ending discussion threads. While communities) as cognates for professional game design administrators may begin those discussions, they seed studios and professional game design practices, we the original posts in each discussion with particular compare directly here to what McDaniel and Daer topics that have been raised by members in chats on (2016) observed at n-Space. In that study, the researchers instant messaging platforms or in game or discussion observed “cross-disciplinary challenges…due to threads, nothing is off limits, and all members’ voices differences in expectations or goals between professional and opinions carry weight. roles. For example, an artist desires graphical fidelity, but McDaniel and Daer (2016) observed a similar an engineer wants to reduce the polygon count for faster flattened approach to discourse in their study of n-Space, rendering” (McDaniel & Daer, 2016, p. 160). We saw where the popularity of face-to-face (rather than digital) similar negotiation as game designers and administrators discussions led to a freedom to communicate around discussed the activity rule for players, as some privileged and across rank. While McDaniel and Daer address user experience while others were concerned with issues of cross-cultural negotiation, as above, and the impacts to game balance and mechanics if penalties challenges of engineers working with artists to find ways were enforced (such as how remaining players would to meet their shared goals despite different priorities, this be impacted if inactive players were simply removed flattened approach to discourse seems to foster shared from the game). Just as with various practitioners approaches to problem solving, a feature observed in participating in discourse at n-Space, the different the MafiEra discussions, particularly with regard to the participants in MafiEra are all working toward the same development over time of the activity rule. thing: smooth game experiences that entice players into engaging with the product. Some discourse is missing Discussion here, however. Much of the less-polished, creation-stage discourse is seen only in the individual game design Using the studies we have modeled and referenced here threads on the satellite site Outer Mafia; what appears in (Reimer, 2017; McDaniel & Daer, 2016; Sherlock, the postmortem review threads is post-game impressions 2014), it is possible to build a framework of game design and suggestions for the future. The discussion is cyclical and development we can compare to MafiEra, and we (this happened, and impacted players in this way; here is can begin to answer our initial research questions: what we should do in the future) and reveals the kinds • Can amateur communities such as MafiEra serve as of internal discussions not visible in studies like Reimer’s viable sites for game design research? (2017), but it is not quite a complete picture, though • If so, what technical communication practices deeper study of the community’s functions may reveal can be observed in MafiEra, and how might these even more of the day-to-day work of design negotiation.

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The focus on data, statistics, negotiation of mechanics, As for documentation, not only does the community and the ongoing creation of documentation, however, maintain meticulous records of all games played does further align with n-Space’s “specialized texts” and (including data on player activity), but since everything the “unique work done by game developers, work that happens in text, everything is archived: all play, all requires artistic and technical expertise” (McDaniel & design discussions, all versions of rules and rule changes. Daer, 2016, p. 161). The n-Space study also addressed, There is a record somewhere of nearly every action the in detail, some of the technical challenges faced by community has ever taken, from official documentation developers, such as the work involved in repurposing a on policies to unofficial banter and chitchat. In this PC game for the Nintendo DS. While games at MafiEra way, communities like MafiEra may present truly require few technical considerations such as these (all unique opportunities for study, because, not only do are text, supported with few images), there are other the processes align with professional testing and design comparable negotiations taking place each season as practices, MafiEra’s records may be more robust than members discuss the optimal sizes for game rosters, those kept by professional studios. In McDaniel and the level of mechanical complication that should be Daer’s (2016) study of n-Space, developers indicated included, and how to integrate new players into the that many conversations about changes may happen community. The challenges and decisions are not the face to face, without records tracking suggestions and same, but they are comparable, and studio designers changes, and Sansone (2014) indicates many game and members of this amateur community are working design documents, while robust in the beginning of toward similar measurable ends. design processes, may not be continuously updated as games move through design stages, so records of changes Toward a Game Design Ecology made (and why) may not be kept. This is one of the reasons we have continued to pursue research within this To address our final research question, we looked to community and have begun to expand to studying other Eyman’s (2008, p. 246) framework for mapping game communities, such as Mafia Universe, and, like Small ecologies and technical communication practices as well (2018), modders as well. Amateur communities may as our own findings. Table 1 demonstrates how Eyman’s not yet be ubiquitous sites for technical communication framework can be used to measure an amateur game or game studies scholarship, but we hope to continue design community’s fitness for contributing to research demonstrating their fitness for filling access gaps in study models and for assessing whether or not a particular of game design practices. amateur community can be compared in general to In other amateur communities, this framework may professional level design. As with Eyman’s framework, still apply, just in different ways based on the type, size, these categories are not totally separate; some practices and needs of the community. While both Alisha and or systems may fall under more than one element, Rachel’s experiences with amateur game design center depending on the individual community. on forum-based games, these are not the only kinds As Table 1 indicates, MafiEra’s use of paratext and of amateur communities; other types of communities interfaces may diverge from professional examples, may require different platforms. Additionally, MafiEra’s but still maps effectively onto the framework. With hierarchy is largely flattened, as we previously described; MafiEra, “interfaces,” as one considers them in a AAA this is not the case for all amateur communities, effort, like aGrand Theft Auto or Elder Scrolls, do not and, in instances where there is a clearer divide exist; there are no nested menus and player HUDs for between administrators and players, the practices of information. But information is delivered to players in a development and documentation are likely to be more prescribed way, so that from game to game, players have complex for a number of reasons. In many forum certain expectations designers must meet: role cards roleplay communities, for instance, administrators build are written in a particular form, phase timers are used, the world of the game and set events in motion while code keeps track of players’ post counts and allows for players create characters and interact with the world and specialized searching not otherwise supported by the the events; in cases like these, players may be consulted ResetEra code. These features (and others) serve as the about gameplay mechanics and UX, but administrators interfaces that ensure seamless play. cannot make all their discussions public without

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Table 1. Mapping MafiEra onto Eyman’s framework for game ecologies and technical communication practices (2008) Eyman’s Framework (2008) MafiEra’s Practices as Comparative Examples Environmental/in-game action Present in both the premise for individual games, and the actions players take using their various in-game positions, roles, and capacities.

Example: Individual game themes create environments (a Twilight Zone game fosters paranoia); individual in-game roles utilize mechanics that change game processes. Paratexual development MafiEra maintains vast resources about the history of the community, with records for all past games and past players. Although not created by the MafiEra community, players also utilize the numerous user-created wikis and strategy documents that exist for mafia games. Finally, in line with Eyman’s (2008) reference to the Leeroy Jenkins video that has become a legendary entry in gaming’s cultural zeitgeist (p. 247), MafiEra has created its own memes and emojis that see frequent use in games as well as in discourse around games.

Eyman (2008) here also uses paratext to refer to interfaces, and, while MafiEra’s structure does not require graphical interfaces, there are prescribed structures for in-game documentation (design spreadsheets, structures for resolving in-game action, consistent structures for gamerunners delivering information to players) that serve to increase positive user experiences and reduce confusion and problems. Documentation MafiEra has always produced guides, from early player guidelines on in-game play strategy to more recent efforts to create more streamlined, efficient guides for everything from beginner game design to how to create an informative and usable game thread. The introduction of more robust coded tools, as well, like the vote tool (a coded platform for counting in-game votes), has required extensive documentation for gamerunners that must be expanded as more features are added. The satellite site, Outer Mafia, currently houses more than a dozen such guides for players and administrators. Infrastructural processes As we have put forth here, in the MafiEra community, these infrastructural processes exist on the internal level of the games themselves, but also on the macro level of community creation. Research As more researchers look to fan-made game mods (cf. Small, 2018) and—we hope— other communities like MafiEra, research a stronger aspect of the framework. As it is, it is our position that this and our previous study demonstrate the potential for research in amateur design communities.

MafiEra administrators also occasionally formally survey player preferences and research other communities’ processes as they seek methods for improving their own. ruining necessary elements of mystery and surprise arise. Regardless of any one community’s particular in future events or sacrificing their own ownership situation, we believe the above framework is flexible for of their created game world. MafiEra’s structure, too, researchers and technical communicators to apply to with clearly delineated seasons of games, lends itself different types of amateur design communities. well to routine review threads to discuss changes and problems among the community and regularly iterate Conclusion and reiterate designs; for amateur games running for months or years without end, design infrastructure In this article, we argue in favor of the long-developing may simply look like an open dialogue between players link between games and technical communication, and administrators where issues are resolved as they and, specifically, for a new link between amateur game

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Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton design communities and technical communication. For decision making in MafiEra allows not only for player practitioners, amateur game design communities can buy-in with mechanics and rule changes but for open still present an opportunity; fan and player networks discussion of the systems and processes that underlie the and communities are integral to games, and groups surface level of any one game. Metadiscourse like this like MafiEra provide an excellent example of design brings players in not only to discussions of narrative and iteration in a participatory, transmedia framework. and story but also to discussions of user experience and This model can help guide practitioners in fostering mechanics. Users’ conception of their own experience and sustaining game communities for professional shifts from “this game was really fun” to “this game ran titles. In short: Fostering and sustaining a community very smoothly for these specific reasons.” Participation requires attention not only to the game itself but to also becomes an expected and integral part of the world the player community. Players should be as involved of the game community (as opposed to the world of in determining the rules of engagement for their the game), so, rather than fostering an oppositional community as they are in digging up Easter eggs and relationship between players and administrators, analyzing the narrative of the game. Amateur game MafiEra and similar communities build equality into designers are experts at building this into their spaces, the worlds they create. Thus, what may be simple at and, in addition to modelling successful practice, they a glance—a bunch of friends playing a text version of can be a useful addition to practitioners’ community party games—is revealed, through deeper study, to be manager teams. a complex system of participatory design and a strong Jenkins’ (2006) conception of transmedia includes potential site for research. world-building as an integral part, but he defines world-building in the context of fans trying “to fully References experience any fictional world” that has already been created: “Consumers must assume the role of hunters Bechmann Petersen, A. (2006). Internet and cross and gatherers, chasing down bits of the story across media productions: Case studies in two major media channels, comparing notes with each other via Danish media organizations. Australian Journal of online discussion groups, and collaborating to ensure Emerging Technologies and Society, 4(2), 94–107. that everyone who invests time and effort will come Boumans, J. (2004). Cross-media: E-content report away with a richer entertainment experience” (p. 21). 8. Retrieved from https://talkingobjects.files. In this sense, then, transmedia world-building means wordpress.com/2011/08/jak-boumans-report.pdf finding and collecting what is already in existence, Dena, C. (2009). Transmedia practice: Theorising with the goal being to curate a comprehensive and the practice of expressing a fictional world across cohesive world of fandom without necessarily creating distinct media and environments (Unpublished anything new. For amateur designers like the MafiEra doctoral dissertation). University of Sydney, community, though, the experience is about meshing Australia. desired elements of the source text with systems deWinter, J., & Vie, S. (2016). Games in technical amateur game designers want to build, adapt, use, or communication. Technical Communication maintain. Meshing Game of Thrones with mafia creates Quarterly, 25(3), 151–155. an entry in the transmediated worlds of both Game of Eyman, D. (2008). Computer gaming and technical Thrones and mafia, but the resulting game is something communication. Technical Communication, 55(3), new rather than found and collated, in line with an 242–250. expanded sense of worldbuilding that accounts for both Gee, J. P. (2014). How to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. fan participation in mainstream media narratives and Chicago, IL: Routledge. participatory amateur game design practices. Jenkins, H. (2003, January 15). Transmedia For technical communicators who must storytelling: Moving characters from books to films understand and account for world-making processes, as to video games can make them stronger and more with game developers who must actively engage with compelling. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved from fans and players, watching amateur design processes can https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401760/ be key. Iteration and, above all, participation in design transmedia-storytelling/.

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Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and Reimer, C. (2017). Dialogic, data-driven design: UX new media collide. New York, NY: NYU Press. and League of Legends. In L. Potts and M. Salvo Jenkins, H. (2009, December 12). The revenge of the (Eds.), Rhetoric and Experience Architecture (pp. origami unicorn: Seven principles of transmedia 241–257). Anderson, SC: Parlor Press. storytelling (well, two actually. five more on Friday). Rose, F. (2012). The art of immersion: How the digital Retrieved from http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/ generation is remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html and the way we tell stories. New York, NY: Norton. Jenkins, H. (2013). “All over the map:” What Oz: The Saldaña, J. (2013). The coding manual for qualitative Great and Powerful can teach us about world- researchers (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. making. Keynote speech at the meeting of the Sánchez, J. L. G., Iranzo, R. M. G., & Vela, F. L. G. (2011, International Society for Intermedia Studies, Cluj- September). Enriching evaluation in video games. In Napoca, Romania. Retrieved from https://www. IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. youtube.com/watch?v=35Vx0Elyqpc 519–522). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. Karabinus, A., & Atherton, R. (2018, August). Games, Sansone, A. T. (2014). Game design documents: UX, and the gaps: Technical communication Changing production models, changing demands. practices in an amateur game design community. In In J. deWinter & R. M. Moeller (Eds.), Computer Proceedings of the 36th ACM International Conference games and technical communication: Critical methods on the Design of Communication (p. 2). ACM. and applications at the intersection (pp. 109–124). Karabinus & Atherton. (in press). Lunch or lose: New York, NY: Ashgate. Emergent language in an online game design Schreier, J. (2017, September 25). Game designer says community. First Person Scholar. developers would be more candid if gamer culture Klastrup, L., & Tosca, S. (2004). Transmedial worlds: wasn’t so toxic. Kotaku. Retrieved from https:// Rethinking cyberworld design. In Proceedings of kotaku.com/game-designer-says-developers-would- the International Conference on Cyberworlds 2004, be-more-candid-if-g-1818729507. IEEEE Computer Society. Los Alamitos, CA. Scolari, C. (2009). Transmedia storytelling: Implicit Retrieved from http://www.itu.dk/people/klastrup/ consumers, narrative worlds, and branding in klastruptosca_transworlds.pdf contemporary media production. International Lamberti, A. P., & Richards, A. R. (2012). Gaming/ Journal of Communication, 3, 586–606. writing and evolving forms of rhetorical awareness Sherlock, L. (2014). Patching as design rhetoric: Tracing potentials of interactive digital media for the framing and delivery of iterative content democratic classrooms. Pedagogy, 12(3), 481–495. documentation in online games. In J. deWinter & Mason, J. (2013). Video games as technical R. M. Moeller (Eds.), Computer games and technical communication ecology. Technical Communication communication: Critical methods and applications at the Quarterly, 22(3), 219–237. intersection (pp. 157–170). New York, NY: Ashgate. McAllister, K. (2004). Game work: Language, power, and Small, R. (2018, August). Mods and convergence computer game culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of culture: Connecting character creation, user Alabama Press. interface, and participatory design. In Proceedings McDaniel, R. (2009). Making the most of interactivity of the 36th ACM International Conference on the online version 2.0: Technical communication as Design of Communication (p. 29). ACM. procedural architecture. Technical Communication, “spider.” (2017, October 24). Mafia 2017. ResetEra. 56(4), 370–386. Retrieved from resetera.com. McDaniel, R., & Daer, A. (2016). Developer discourse: Spinuzzi, C. (2002, October). Modeling genre Exploring technical communication practices ecologies. In Proceedings of the 20th Annual within video game development. Technical International Conference on Computer Communication Quarterly, 25(3), 155–166. Documentation (pp. 200–207). ACM. Miles, M., Huberman, A., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Tracing genres through Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook (Third organizations: A sociocultural approach to information ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. design (Vol. 1). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Alisha Karabinus and Rachel Atherton

About the Author Rachel Atherton is a PhD student in English at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Her research Alisha Karabinus is a PhD candidate in English at interests mainly lie in the intersection of technical Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Her communication, public or community writing, and research centers on experience; she studies experience data science. She has also done research in media studies in games and gaming culture, and student experiences and in feminist mentorship. With Alisha Karabinus, in writing and rhetoric. Prior to her graduate study, she she received the 2018 SIGDOC Best Paper Award for worked as a writer and editor in gaming and tech news, previous research in their ongoing project on amateur and currently serves as co-host for the long-running Not game design communities. She is available at ratherto@ Your Mama’s Gamer podcast. With Rachel Atherton, purdue.edu. she received the 2018 SIGDOC Best Paper Award for previous research in their ongoing project on amateur game design communities. She is available at akarabin@ Manuscript received 1 September 2018, revised 15 April purdue.edu. 2019; accepted 17 April 2019.

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 271 Applied Research Memetic Variation in The Whole30: Understanding Content Consistency in a Transmediated Nutritional Program By Carleigh Davis

Abstract Purpose: The goal of this article is to understand how and why content relating to a popular nutrition program, the Whole30, is taken up or discarded when shifting between producer- and participant-controlled media. Method: This article utilizes memetic rhetorical analysis to identify interface- and content-specific memes and to explore the connections between those memes that create environments to which some adapt successfully while other are lost. Results: My analysis shows that the interface memes that characterize the Whole30 Facebook Community page create a communicative situation in which personal experience is more likely to be persuasive than scientific research or institutionally conferred credentials. Conclusion: Technical communicators need to craft technical and scientific content to allow for transmediated community interaction that draws on the affordances of social media sites to maintain the integrity of information. Keywords: memetics, social media, Facebook, nutrition, transmedia

Practitioner’s • Examines the ways a social media • Argues that the affordances of media Takeaway: site affects user interaction with and interfaces determine the ability of interpretation of scientific content scientific content to successfully • Interrogates the efficacy of relying on spread in transmediated communities the established credibility of expert • Articulates a need for technical and researchers when communicating scientific sources of information with audiences across a variety of to consider the transmediation of participatory media content produced for public audiences

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Carleigh Davis

Introduction of these media: The participatory work put in by community members to build knowledge on a subject The Internet is home to an abundance of complex of common interest affords participants with new information that can be difficult for many casual opportunities to engage with content that matters to users to navigate. For at least the last decade, technical them. It also acts as a publicly oriented system of checks communication scholars have noted that a great deal and balances to the typically privileged access required of the rhetorical work often done by paid technical to participate in scientific discourse that is controlled by communicators is being taken up by private users research- and product-producers. online as a means of social interaction. Chong (2018) In producer-controlled media, content is inherently studied this phenomenon relating to beauty tutorials controlled by entities with the means to access content on YouTube; van Ittersum (2014) applied this distribution on a scale necessary to reach the producers’ understanding to DIY instructions posted online by intended audience(s), whatever these might be. Such and for amateur hobbyists; Ding (2009) took it up content is more likely to be backed by well-funded regarding the use of a variety of on- and offline media studies conducted by experts in the field. Conversely, to facilitate risk communication in the SARS epidemic social media acts as a more democratic and interactive of 2002, and other examples abound. With such vast medium and tends to value content that is privileged proliferation of technical communication practices by the algorithms of various social media sites (e.g., online, Kimball (2017) characterized our present era as Kite, Foley, Grunseit, & Freeman, 2016). The rapid “the golden age of technical communication” (p. 341). convergence of on- and offline experiences means Such practices are also the locus of concerns with most discourse communities that frequent Internet the spread of mis/disinformation, now that mass- users belong to are transmediated—that is, defined consumed content is not controlled exclusively by by interaction across more than one communicative experts, and “click bait” (content that quickly attracts medium—by default. This confluence allows for the attention of potential readers, often at the expense of participatory “world-making” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 294) accuracy or factual rigor, to drive traffic to the producing in technical and scientific discourse through user website) by means of social media is a viable means of interaction, potentially benefiting access to quality content distribution. This concern can be particularly scientific content online. However, this confluence also evident when readers’ health is at stake, should they carries the associated risk of content being contaminated take the proffered advice. Waszak, Kasprzycka-Waszak, by inaccurate and even harmful information that is not and Kubanek (2018) explored the prevalence of this supported by traditional research. phenomenon in their study of the spread of medical Such is the case with the ever-growing body fake news on social media, finding that a single source of nutrition and weight-loss communities online. of inaccurate information can quickly dominate a Transmedia world-building of health and nutrition social network, particularly when that content refers to programs and information is extremely common health topics about which public opinions run strong as online users work to share resources in the name (their examples refer to vaccines and HIV/AIDS). of health, fitness, or aesthetic. For example, loosely Dixon, McKeever, Holton, Clarke, & Eosco (2015) structured diet and nutrition groups, like those and Bode and Vraga (2015) likewise noted the difficulty surrounding Paleo, Ketogenic/ Low-carb, and alkaline that researchers and practitioners alike have with diets, as well as the Whole30, which this article will correcting misinformation once it has spread online. As discuss in depth, appear across many websites and such, one of the foremost challenges facing technical social media platforms. These groups are characterized communicators today is the fraught task of helping not only by the ways that individual members use the online readers to identify scientifically valid and best- unique affordances of each media platform to support practice oriented content among the chaff. and motivate one another but also by the import/ From product reviews to instructions, and from export of information related to the dietary program testimonials to evaluative reports, social media is among various online sites as well as offline media, saturated with content representing a variety of including textual resources (like references to texts and perspectives and experiences. This is the strength cookbooks) and personal, lived experiences.

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Although these groups provide widespread access among public audiences and scientific practitioners. to the key concepts behind their respective dietary Even a casual observation of public weight loss programs, they often dilute those concepts with discourse shows contradictory ideas (Is animal fat unhealthy extremes or even information that is plainly helpful or harmful for weight loss? Do we need to false. Much research (e.g., Ghaznavi & Taylor, 2015; eat carbs if we aren’t endurance athletes?) and leaves Tiggemann, Churches, Mitchell, & Brown, 2018; many dieters frustrated and skeptical of nutritional Tiggemann & Zaccardo, 2015; Deighton-Smith & Bell, science. The Whole30 is one such nutritional program; 2018) has explored the harms and benefits of social it provides guidelines for a particular style of eating media communities surrounding “thinspiration” and and challenges participants to commit to this eating “fitspiration,” which Tiggemann et al. (2018) define as program for a 30-day time period without lapses. “contemporary online trends designed to inspire viewers This program originated in 2009 through a series of towards the thin ideal or towards health and fitness blog posts authored by its creators, Melissa and Dallas respectively” (p. 133). These studies demonstrate the Hartwig. Since that time, the program has expanded ways in which the “social” aspect of social media works to include several books, a thriving online community to reinforce existing mentalities relating to the desire for spanning the program website and several social media a certain body type, as well as strategies for achieving channels, and participants around the world. The focus that body type. They also demonstrate the unhealthy of this program is on spending 30 days practicing what extremes that these communities can harbor. Conversely, the Hartwigs call “Eating Good Food” or, to put it a Goodyear, Armour, and Wood (2018) and Napolitano different way,not eating all of the following: et al. (2017) argued that, when used appropriately, social • Added sugar, whether natural or artificial media can serve as a valuable resource for educating • Alcohol young people about health-related information, • Grains of any kind, including corn, rice, oats, and including nutrition. This is only a small sampling of wheat as well as quinoa and amaranth interdisciplinary work that demonstrates the role of • All forms of beans, including soy products and online communities in crafting and sharing discourse their derivatives regarding weight loss and nutrition. • Dairy of all varieties This study examines one such community: the • Any food with MSG or sulfites Whole30 Community Facebook page. Through a • Any food that is made from compliant ingredients memetic rhetorical analysis, this study demonstrates but visually or psychologically mimics “bad foods” that the transmediational nature of this content and (Hartwig & Hartwig, 2014) community re-constructs the way participants on this page understand the credibility of information relating The theory behind these restrictions is that they to their nutritional needs. For technical communicators prevent participants from consuming foods that who routinely craft scientific information, like nutritional might trigger personal sensitivities, like hidden allergic information, for public audiences, this re-construction reactions, and they deny participants the possibility of is highly illustrative; it demonstrates the need for a eating for emotional reasons. The intensive restrictions thorough understanding of the affordances and rhetorical also encourage conscious eating habits, such as reading construction of the various media on and through which nutrition labels on packaged foods, and are characteristic a community is built prior to crafting content for that of a nutritional “reset” that the program creators claim community. Without such an understanding, researched re-orients the body biologically to have a healthier and well-written content can be disregarded, or can relationship with food (Hartwig & Hartwig, 2014). become a source of misinformation itself, when it moves The Whole30 books (which form the exigency across media and into different contexts. for the Facebook community page) contain explicit conversations about building the credibility of the Background program. There is a significant amount of seemingly valid nutritional science that is built into the Whole30 Weight loss regimens and fad diets are among the most program. Melissa Hartwig herself is a certified sports common and easily accessible examples of conflict nutritionist, and the use of elimination diets to gauge

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Carleigh Davis the effects of certain food groups on an individual’s collection of Whole30 books authored by Melissa and medical condition is not uncommon. In fact, much Dallas Hartwig, taking into account memes relating of the “scienc-y stuff” (to use the official Whole30 to both interface and content. I then followed the terminology) that the Whole30 literature references same process of inductive coding to identify the key appears to come from peer-reviewed medical, memes that characterize the Whole30 Community nutritional, and psychological journals, and credible Facebook page. Based on a thorough comparison of nutritional organizations. As such, it is here that we see the content memes that appear consistently in both the first shift is medium for content that was presumably media, as opposed to those that are relegated to only written by scientists and technical communicators; it is one, I argue that the interface memes that characterize moving out of the realm of academic discourse and into these media exert significant influence over the ability a genre most akin to a self-help book. of content and ideas to transfer across media in a Within the context of the Whole30 books, the transmediated community. connection between academic/scientific research and the information provided is deliberately de-emphasized. Memetic Rhetorical Theory as Methodology In the texts, the Hartwigs discuss the credibility of the Based in the study of memetics, MRT offers a program (the fact that it “works” for dieters in various framework for understanding how memes; which can ways) as being separate from its connections with be information, media, technologies, cultural tropes, established scientific methods. Specifically, they say the and rhetorical practices, among other things; adapt to credentials they as authors hold, and the peer-reviewed gain persuasive power in communicative situations. research built into the program, are (and should be) In the development of MRT, I focus on the ways in insufficient to convince people that the program works. which combinations of technological, material, social, This characterization of the relationship among peer- and rhetorical factors collaboratively determine the reviewed research, observation, and personal experience construction of ethos in a given environment. This indicates a certain degree of mistrust in relying solely on model relies on an understanding of content as subject established scientific methods; they are characterized as to change over time and through transition but also impersonal and often inaccessible, through the contrast characterizes that change as environmentally responsive, between phrases like “academic evidence” and “boots- rather than solely the result of conscious changes made on-the-ground experience.” In this way, the rhetorical by composers.1 communication of the Whole30 program deliberately A meme in memetics and MRT is both a challenges conventional wisdom that claims that theoretical concept and an agent that functions as a unit academically and professionally certified doctors and of communication. As such, in the formation of MRT, nutritionists are the best and most reliable sources of I rely heavily on Dawkins’s (1989) original definition information about health and nutrition. of a meme (also used by Blackmore, 1999, and others) This article uses memetic rhetorical theory (MRT, as any feature of communicative interaction that coined in Davis, 2018) to analyze the consistency of replicates (that is, is used or appears more than once in content between the Whole30 books and the Whole30 a communicative scenario). However, I distinguish my Facebook community page. By determining what definition from that of both Dawkins and Blackmore content changes and what content remains the same as with the addition of non-human actors as agents of the communicative scenario moves through and across communication, meaning that memes do not need different media, this analysis demonstrates it is possible to be transmitted by humans alone but can also be to retain key content points when those content transmitted by technologies or physical conditions. As points are well-suited to the various media in which such, I define any unit of communicative action as a they will appear. meme, provided that it meets the following criteria:

Methods 1 For a full description of memetic rhetorical theory, see Davis (2018). This analytic model builds on Ridolfo and DeVoss’s (2009) definition of rhetorical In this process, I began by using inductive coding to velocity, which is a useful term for understanding information transfer among identify key elements, or memes, that characterize the users, among other key theoretical concepts.

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• It must be repeated (replicated) at least once in product. It is in this sense that the adaptive nature of addition to its original appearance in a given space; MRT becomes relevant. Because memes rely on each • It must fulfill a rhetorical purpose by facilitating other to build meaning, memes appear more frequently communication; and when they correspond well to other memes that exist in • It must derive meaning for that purpose from the communicative situation. contextual relationships with other memes in the If corporate culture at the adhesives manufacturing same communicative situation. company mandates strictly technical jargon, the Post- It analogy is likely to seem unprofessional and will According to this definition, examples of memes appear rarely, if at all. In this case, it would exert little include those previously referenced but also include influence over the communicative situation, because it interface features, environmental factors, sounds, would have so little exposure. If, however, comparisons images, features of images, and any other discrete to common products are used often in our adhesives element related to communication that may or may not manufacturing company, or if a conversational tone is rely solely on human beings for transmission. typical in product communications, the Post-It meme In strict adherence to these criteria, there are is likely to spread. The more often a meme appears, thousands of memes present in any communicative then, the more influence it has over which other memes situation. In order for MRT to be a productive appear in that communicative situation, so the presence analytical tool, it must not only identify memes but of the Post-It meme could even create increased also distinguish between memes that are merely present likelihood of success for similar memes in the future. and memes that shape the interaction or system of This mutually constructive element of memes interactions in which they appear to a greater or lesser necessitates an understanding of how memes fit degree. This distinction is possible by identifying and work together; a productive study of memes disparities in the frequency with which these memes should never consider them in isolation. Blackmore appear; the more often a meme appears, the more (1999) draws on Speel (1995) in her use of the term integral to the communicative situation it is. For “memeplexes” as a shorthand for the more cumbersome example, consider the following situation: Heather is an “co-adapted meme complexes” (p. 19). These are engineer at an adhesives manufacturing company. When groups of memes that evolve together over time, describing a new product to her team, she says, “It can building on one another’s successes and creating frames be removed from any surface and then re-stuck easily, of reference that determine the survival rate of new like an industrial grade Post-It note.” The comparison memes that emerge near them. As such, memeplexes to a Post-It is picked up by the team’s technical writer are characterized by the internal compatibility of the and appears in the product overview. In this way, the memes they contain; they complement one another but conceptual link between this new product and the are not identical. In the above example, the prevalence popular office supply replicates, it fulfills a rhetorical of comparisons to common products would qualify purpose by making the qualities of the new product as a memeplex, while individual memes within that easy to understand, and it derives meaning that helps it memeplex might involve the Post-It meme, a company- achieve that purpose from the contextual truth that all wide habit of discussing products face-to-face where the readers of the product overview are aware of what such colloquial analogies are likely to come out, a recent Post-Its are and how they are used. This conceptual link likening of a label cutter to a light saber, and a similar between the new adhesive and Post-Its is a meme. analogy linking two-dimensional bar codes to floppy However, from this point, one of two things discs, among others. can happen: This meme can spread, appearing in It is this compatibility function that allows other product-related media and discussions of the memeplexes to act as both gatekeeping mechanisms product among team members, or it can die off, and mutually constructive forces for emerging memes. appearing in just those two original instances, or only The co-adaptive nature of memes and memeplexes rarely thereafter. Which of these possibilities occurs in a communicative situation creates environments depends on the other memes that characterize the that are conducive to the spread of some content and communicative situation surrounding this particular communicative actions but detrimental to others.

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It is, therefore, through successful adaptation to I considered this set of books as a single, complex a communicative situation—the combination of memeplex (each book alone is, of course, also a technological, material, social, and rhetorical factors in memeplex). Within this memeplex, I followed a process an environment—that new content is able to spread of inductive coding to identify memes that appear in successfully, thereby gaining persuasive power. each book. Next, I compared the lists of memes that In these communicative situations, memeplexes appeared in each individual book to identify memes are made up of memes that serve a variety of that were consistent between books. Next, it was communicative functions. Some of these functions have necessary to determine how often these commonly to do with the formation and definition of content, appearing memes materialize in the collection, so as while others have to do with the media and interfaces to gauge their relative influence within the memeplex. through which the content is communicated; I will call The Whole30 Cookbook and The Whole30: The 30-Day these content memes and interface memes, respectively. Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom are segmented Because content memes and interface memes co-adapt using units within major headings, while It Starts with to create the memeplexes that define communicative Food and Food Freedom Forever use chapters. As such, situations, technical communicators who work in I determined the frequency with which each meme transmediated communicative situations, like that of appeared by calculating the percentage of segmented the Whole30 community that will be discussed in the units (the term I will use as a consistent referent to both following sections, must make use of interface memes chapters and units within major headings) in which that are afforded by the various media available to them that meme appeared. I identified specific memes as in order to avoid unwanted shifts in content memes influential based on the relative frequency with which across media. Such unwanted shifts in content memes they appeared throughout the books when compared can drastically alter both brand voice and message, and with the average frequency of other memes that fulfill can even contribute to the spread of misinformation. similar roles. This method allowed me to determine the In the case of the Whole30, the interface memes controlling memes in this memeplex. that characterize the Whole30 Facebook community To understand if and how the memes from the page do not detract from all the content memes present books transfer across media in this transmediated in the Hartwigs’ original books but rather intensify community, I followed the same process of inductive some of them. In the following sections, I postulate coding to analyze the officially sanctioned content on that this is because the interface memes of the books the Whole30 Facebook page as well as community and the interface memes of the Facebook community posts between January 1, 2018, and March 1, 2018. page, while different, serve similar rhetorical functions: These dates are significant, because activity on the They all de-emphasize the necessity for expert research. page increased dramatically during the early months Therefore, the content memes that align with this of the year, affording an analysis with adequate disregard for expert research maintain their integrity data to characterize community trends. I chose to when they move across media. extend the analysis over two months because of the 30-day nature of the program. I noticed that many Data Collection community members posting on the Facebook page I began my memetic rhetorical analysis by using inductive were beginning their Whole30 Challenge early in coding to identify the controlling memes at play in the January (as is not unusual with diet changes) and felt books that form the foundation of the Whole30 program. that it was important to allow enough time in my study These books serve as comprehensive reference guides for for the original posters to finish their program and for Whole30 dieters. Their titles are as follows: other, new participants to begin. This helped to ensure • Food Freedom Forever: Letting Go of Bad Habits, that I was not unnecessarily limiting the scope of the Guilt, and Anxiety Around Food communicative situation by focusing specifically on • Whole30 Cookbook one cohort of Whole30 participants. It also provided • The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and me with a picture of the communicative situation Food Freedom that spans all the stages of the program, rather than • It Starts with Food appearing artificially focused on the early days.

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Results of the book (i.e., page-turning) to access and understand the information it contains. It is worth noting that this meme is characteristic of all Influential Memes in Whole30 Books printed books. The following paragraphs identify the most prevalent • Hypertextual Design: The writing and formatting and, therefore, the most influential, memes in the not only allow for but also actively encourage Whole30 books. Comparison of the frequency of non-linear reading. This meme appears in several appearance of interface memes in the Whole30 books instantiations, including textual indicators to “skip” indicated three interface memes that have a markedly or focus on upcoming sections to achieve specific higher relative frequency of appearance (see Figure 1) goals or cater to specific interests, calls forward or when compared to the average frequency of appearance backward to other chapters (including references to of other interface memes in the books. These three other recipes as ingredients in recipe sections), call- memes can therefore be understood as key to the out or definition boxes that allow readers to skim or delivery of the information in all four books. refer back to content to grasp important ideas, and even chapter titles that facilitate selective reading. • Separation of Information from Sources: This involves physical distance—in this case, often several pages or the entire contents of the book, between the location on a page where information from a reference source is given and the citation where that source is named using any readily identifiable information. This is in contrast to more common ways of referencing external sources in print media, wherein a parenthetical or sentence-form citation appears in close proximity to the material that has been drawn from the source in question. Figure 1. This chart shows the comparative frequency with which memes fulfilling a mediational function appear in the Together, these memes govern the ways that Whole30 books. The average appearance of memes fulfilling information is presented in the Whole30 book series. this function is roughly 13 appearances in 116 total segment- Notice that while the haptic-textual interface meme is ed units (just over 10%). Haptic-Textual Interface memes characteristic of all printed books, hypertextual design appear in 100% of segmented units, Hypertextual design and the separation of information from sources are not. memes in 94.8%, and Separation of Information from Source However, if any of these three memes were missing, memes in 34%. the other two memes would function differently in this communicative scenario. In a print book, wherein Identifiable but minimally influential interface it is easy to skip a table of contents and no sources are memes (i.e., photographs, charts and diagrams) cited directly in the text (separation-of-information- appeared in just over 10% of segments, on average. from-sources meme), the references, where they exist The most influential interface memes—haptic-textual at the end of the chapter or book, are rhetorically interface, hypertextual design, and the physical de-emphasized. The reader may not even notice they separation of information from sources—appear much are there, and, if they do, with no authors named in more frequently. Figure 1 demonstrates this contrast. the text, it is nearly impossible to align content with These influential memes are defined as follows: the sources from which it originates. Likewise, the • Haptic-Textual Interface: The qualities of hypertextual design of the books encourages readers to touchable, text-based interaction that requires follow their own direction, rhetorically assigning them intersecting combinations of literacies, economic agency and authority in their reading experience, which access, and embodied accessibility, and mobility is easily achieved in a haptic-textual format.

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In addition to these three interface memes, I also the Whole30 program and experienced specific identified four content memes that act as foundational benefits as a result. ideas within the body of the text. These four memes had • Freedom through Control of Eating Habits: a markedly higher relative frequency of appearance (see This meme refers to descriptions of unhealthy Figure 2) when compared with the average frequency of relationships with food that equate these appearance of other content memes, and can therefore relationships with a prison sentence or a war be understood as characteristic of formative ideas zone. It emphasizes the anxiety that people often within the body of texts. These are concepts on which feel in eating situations when they feel powerless the reasoning and persuasive power of the Whole30 to overcome their cravings. Freedom, then, is program relies and that readers must buy into if they are characterized as the absence of this anxiety and the to be effectively persuaded by the rest of the content. understanding that it is possible to escape from These memes are defined as follows: unhealthy cycles. • Not a Diet: This meme refers to the framing of • Recipes and Recommendations: This meme weight loss as a supplemental and less-important focuses on strategies for success within the program benefit when compared with the other outcomes and, as such, describes suggested recipes, tools for claimed by the program, like improved mood, better meal planning, and recommendations for specific overall health including the elimination of existing best practices while completing the program. diseases or reduction of symptoms. Similarly, the author(s) repeatedly note that the Whole30 Influential Memes on Whole30 is intended to permanently change the way that Community Facebook Page participants interact with food. This positioning The following paragraphs identify the most prevalent contrasts with traditional diets, which are and, therefore, the most influential, memes that characterized in this meme as quick-fix, short term make up the Whole30 Community Facebook Page. solutions tied primarily to a desire to lose weight. A comparative analysis of the relative frequency with • Personal Testimony: Personal testimonies refer to which interface memes appear on this page when the inclusion of direct quotes or anecdotes from compared to the average number of appearances individuals who self-identify as having completed of interface memes on this page indicated that (1) an emphasis on users in page and content design, and (2) the spatial grouping of posts and comments are standard interface features of the Facebook site. Unsurprisingly, for a social media site that does not allow substantive customization of page interfaces, these interface memes are not unique to the Whole30 page. These interface memes are standard to the page and are therefore present whenever content is uploaded, so both are present in 100% of posts analyzed. This universal presence also means that other, optional interface memes, such as the inclusion of hashtags to organize content, appeared too rarely compared to the average appearance of interface memes on this page to be Figure 2. This chart shows the comparative frequency with significant influencers within this memeplex. which foundational content memes appear in the Whole30 • User Emphasis: In the Facebook community books. The average appearance of memes fulfilling this page—and on Facebook, generally speaking— function is roughly 8 appearances in 116 total segmented there is a close spatial link between the content a units (just under 7%). The “Not a Diet” meme appears in 20% user posts and that user’s identifying information, of segmented units, Personal Testimony in 55%, Freedom including their name (as designated on their Through Control of Eating Habits in 26%, and Recipes and account) and profile picture. On the screen, the Recommendations in 50%. user’s name appears in a larger font, bold typeface,

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and navy-blue coloring, which emphasizes the user the average frequency of appearances of other content who contributed the content before the type of the memes. Figure 3 illustrates this comparison. This content itself. frequency was analyzed through inductive coding of • Spatial Grouping of Posts: Comments, likes, etc., all 426 posts that appeared on the page in the specified appear in close proximity to original content and timeframe, with some posts containing multiple in chronological order. These are organized on the memes. These content memes are defined as follows: page chronologically by contribution, meaning that • Personal Testimony: Community members the position of the post on the page depends on use the forum space to report on their personal when it was uploaded and not on who uploaded progress, intentions, or results. This often takes the it. As such, the narrative that a reader experiences form of a simple summary of where the user is in is the narrative of the page as a whole, as a set of the program (abbreviations such as R2D16, for isolated content interactions, not the comprehensive “Round 2, Day 16” are common) and/or a brief narrative of a single user’s experience, or a set of discussion of how the program is going for them. recognizable individual users’ experiences. Users will occasionally point out problems they are encountering or benefits they are observing. The combination of these two memes creates an This meme also manifests as individuals indicating interface memeplex that privileges perception of the user the start (or plans to start) or end of their as an abstract concept rather than an individual. Due Whole30 program. to the spatial separation of individual posts by the same • Looking for Tips: Community members use the user from one another, and the fact that the community forum space to ask others for advice on solving page, rather than the profiles of individual users, is the specific problems related to the Whole30. These primary locus for interaction, users on this particular often have to do with incorporating existing page are never able to develop complex personae. habits into the Whole30 lifestyle (i.e., a user might indicate that they are used to taking protein supplements after a workout and ask if anyone knows how to get the same level of protein intake in a compliant way) but might also include requests for advice about cooking or shopping techniques, or general, “I’m new to this, does anyone have any tips?” style posts. • “Can I have…”: Users often post inquiries about foods or specific ingredients, asking others if these are allowable on the program. In many cases, the user will include a picture of the food (especially the ingredients list) along with their post. This Figure 3. This chart shows the comparative frequency with meme is distinct from “Looking for Tips,” which foundational content memes appear in posts on the because the users are seeking “yes” or “no” answers Whole30 Community Facebook page. The average appear- regarding a specific food or product rather than ance of memes fulfilling this function is roughly 14 appear- advice more broadly. ances in 426 total posts (about 3%). The Personal Testimony • Sharing Recipes and Suggestions: These are meme appears in 49% of posts, Looking for Tips in 27% of unsolicited posts (i.e., they are not in response to posts, “Can I have…” in 18% of posts, and Sharing Recipes specific requests for suggestions) that users share on and Suggestions in 29%. the community page containing references to brands or products that are Whole30 compliant, or recipes Likewise, I identified four content memes that for compliant meals. This meme, like others I have appear most frequently on the page. These memes discussed, appears in a few different manifestations. were, again, indicated through analysis of the frequency Some are full recipes containing lists of ingredients, with which they appear on the page as compared to preparation instructions, and cook times, others are

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simply pictures of food with a brief endorsement co-adaptation of the testimony meme with the user-focus (“yum!”), and still others are reports that the user meme within the Facebook interface memeplex, as it is has discovered a food that they like that is compliant specific to that user and tied to the user’s account, rather with the plan. Many are combinations of one or than being selected by authors or cite administrators and more of these manifestations used as a frame of reference. Because of the anonymous yet personal quality of the Facebook interface memeplex, Together, these two interface memes and four personal testimony memes are rhetorically constructed as content memes combine to form the memeplexes being generalizable to the average page user. The interface that define the communicative situation of Whole30 memeplex helps to define credibility in this community Facebook community page. Notice the difference in based on personal results, so users know a testimony the interface memes and the only partial overlap in the is credible and that they can achieve similar results content memes between the books and the Facebook specifically because another user shared this as their own page, which the following analysis will discuss. experience. In this adaptation, the content meme of personal testimony stayed true to its original purpose as Analysis it appeared in the Whole30 books. However, the original scientific research that prompted the practices on which The interface memes and content memes defined in the testimonies are based have been lost. the above sections are fully dependent on one another The recipes and recommendations meme likewise within the confines of the memeplexes that characterize evolved to suit the Facebook communicative situation. the books and the Whole30 Facebook community page, In the books, the recipes are detailed (typically, one respectively. Together, the interface and content memes page) and often organized by category, cookbook- in each space form the memeplexes that define that style, so that finding desired recipes is facilitated by space. The varying dynamics between the memeplex of the hypertextual design. The recommendations are the books and the memeplex that shapes the Facebook also detailed and often supported by what the authors page determines what memes will succeed or fail when call “scienc-y stuff” (read: research). On the Facebook they move from the books to the Facebook page in this page, however, recipes tend to either be short and transmediated communicative situation. The interface non-descriptive, including only ingredient proportions memes in particular (and the memeplexes they create) are and summary instructions, or simple links outward to markedly different between the Facebook Community other sites, while recommendations come in the form page and the Whole30 published books, which causes of simple endorsements or images of food products or other memes to shift and adapt accordingly. Yet, while brands. While links outward occur, these are framed in these interface memes present differently across media, the context of recommendations or suggestions, again both sets rhetorically emphasize the experiences of users meaning that the inclusion of the content is contingent over researchers as content experts, effectively centering on the original poster’s personal experience with it credibility around personal experience. rather than any intrinsic quality of the linked content Two memes from the books appear prominently in itself. Hence, the credibility of the post relies on that the Whole30 Facebook community: Personal testimonies recommendation meme and the content only spreads as and recommendations/recipes. Both of these, however, a result of its inclusion. have evolved to better suit the communicative situation The multi-user site interface also allowed the recipes of the Facebook community page. and recommendations meme from the books to evolve Instead of manifesting solely as static reports as into requests for information that users can expect they appear in the books, personal testimonies on the to be answered. This function created the looking- Facebook page include elements of personal tracking as for tips and “Can I have…?” memes that are present well. When reporting their results, users mention where on the Facebook site. The communicative situation they are in the program (including when or if they have of the Facebook page, which utilizes interpersonal finished) and specific details of their progress in time- communication and includes the sharing of recipes and oriented phrasing (i.e., “R1D15, my skin has cleared recommendations, allows memes that seek out this kind up and I have TONS of energy”). This evolution shows of information to co-exist symbiotically.

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These posts rely on the credibility of the named in that space. As such, content that is integral to users’ yet anonymous user, much like the testimony well-being or productive interaction with a concept memes; however, recipes and recommendations are or product must be composed from the start for focused on specific products and strategies rather transmediation. than an anticipated outcome. The shared source of credibility means that testimony, and recipes and References recommendations, are rhetorically linked within the site interface, suggesting that even though all of these Blackmore, S. J. (1999). The meme machine. New York, are posted by different users, utilizing the recipes and NY: Oxford University Press. recommendations from one group of users will allow Bode, L., & Vraga, E. K. (2015). In related news, that page readers to achieve the same results as the users who was wrong: The correction of misinformation reported their tracking and testimony. through related stories functionality in social This analysis demonstrates that the memes from media. Journal of Communication, 65(4), 619–638. the Whole30 books that carried most successfully onto doi:10.1111/jcom.12166 the Facebook community page are those that were Chong, F. (2018). YouTube beauty tutorials as technical already well-suited to the named yet anonymous user- communication. Technical Communication, 65(3), focused interface memeplex that defines the Facebook 293–308. community page. These memes adapted slightly, but Davis, C. J. (July 2018). Memetic rhetorical theory in they maintained their original message as well as the technical communication: Re-constructing ethos in the rhetorical effect utilized by the Hartwigs in their books. post-fact era. (Doctoral dissertation). East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina. Retrieved Conclusion from: http://hdl.handle.net/10342/6935 Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene. New York, NY: The combination of these interface and content Oxford: Oxford University Press. memeplexes means that the Facebook community page Deighton-Smith, N., & Bell, B. T. (2018). Objectifying is a communicative situation that not only emphasizes fitness: A content and thematic analysis of but is built on personal testimony and anecdotal #fitspiration images on social media.Psychology results. These are used as community resources as of Popular Media Culture, 7(4), 467–483. well as support mechanisms, meaning that they are doi:10.1037/ppm0000143 among the most common and integral memeplexes Ding, H. (2009). Rhetorics of alternative media in in this communicative situation. Credibility in an emerging epidemic: SARS, censorship, and this communicative situation is derived from the extra-institutional risk communication. Technical relationship between information and individuals, not Communication Quarterly, 18(4), 327–350. doi: from scientific methodology or personal credentials. 10.1080/10572250903149548 As such, attempts to intervene in potentially unhealthy Dixon, G. N., McKeever, B. W., Holton, A. E., habits, or to spread new and beneficial research-based Clarke, C., & Eosco, G. (2015). The power of a content in this forum, are unlikely to be successful, picture: Overcoming scientific misinformation by unless they make intentional use of this focus on communicating weight-of-evidence information individual experience. with visual exemplars. Journal of Communication, Situations like this are common on social media, 65(4), 639–659. doi:10.1111/jcom.12159 where the social focus leads users to rely heavily on Ghaznavi, J., & Taylor, L. D. (2015). Bones, body parts, content from one another, and direct engagements by and sex appeal: An analysis of# thinspiration images experts are both rare and undervalued. It is important on popular social media. Body image, 14, 54–61. for technical communicators who produce content for Goodyear, V. A., Armour, K. M., & Wood, H. public consumption to be aware of this phenomenon. (2018). Young people and their engagement with When engaging with transmediated communities, it health-related social media: New perspectives. is the content that is best suited to the communicative Sport, Education and Society, 1–16 doi: situation within each medium that retains its credibility 10.1080/13573322.2017.1423464

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Hartwig, M. (2016). Food freedom forever: Letting go van Ittersum, D. (2014). Craft and narrative in DIY of bad habits, guilt, and anxiety around food. New instructions. Technical Communication Quarterly, York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 23, 227–246, doi:10.1080/10572252.2013.798466 Hartwig, M. (2016). The Whole30 cookbook: 150 Waszak, P. M., Kasprzycka-Waszak, W., & Kubanek, A. delicious and totally compliant recipes to help you (2018). The spread of medical fake news in social succeed with the Whole30 and beyond. New York, media – the pilot quantitative study. Health Policy NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. and Technology, 7(2), 115–118. doi:10.1016/j. Hartwig, D., & Hartwig, M. (2014). It starts with hlpt.2018.03.002 food: Discover the Whole30 and change your life in unexpected ways. Las Vegas, Nevada: Victory Belt. About the Author Hartwig, M., & Hartwig, D. (2015). The Whole30: The 30-day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom. Carleigh Davis is an Assistant Professor of Technical New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Communication at Missouri University of Science and Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old Technology in Rolla, Missouri. Her research focuses on and new media collide. New York, NY: New York the rhetorical construction of online communities and University Press. the spread of mis/disinformation in digital spaces. She Kimball, M. A. (2017). The golden age of is available at [email protected]. technical communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 47(3), 330–358. doi:10.1177/0047281616641927 Manuscript received 25 May 2019, revised 2 June 2019; accepted Kite, J., Foley, B. C., Grunseit, A. C., & Freeman, B. 5 June 2019. (2016). Please like me: Facebook and public health communication. PLOS ONE, 11(9). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162765 Napolitano, M. A., Whiteley, J. A., Mavredes, M. N., Faro, J., DiPietro, L., Hayman, L. L., & Simmens, S. (2017). Using social media to deliver weight loss programming to young adults: Design and rationale for the healthy body healthy U (HBHU) trial. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 60, 1–13. doi:10.1016/j.cct.2017.06.007 Ridolfo, J., & DeVoss, D. N. (2009). Composing for recomposition: Rhetorical velocity and delivery. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 13(2), n2. Speel, H.C. (1995). Memetics: On a conceptual framework for cultural evolution. Paper presented at the symposium ‘Einstein meets Magritte,’ Free University of Brussels. Tiggemann, M., Churches, O., Mitchell, L., & Brown, Z. (2018). Tweeting weight loss: A comparison of #thinspiration and #fitspiration communities on twitter. Body Image, 25, 133–138. doi:10.1016/j. bodyim.2018.03.002 Tiggemann, M., & Zaccardo, M. (2015). “Exercise to be fit, not skinny”: The effect of fitspiration imagery on women’s body image. Body Image, 15, 61. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.06.003

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 283 Applied Research The Participatory Culture of Technical Communication in Online Gaming Communities By Carly Finseth

Abstract Purpose: Games-based technical communication is created both by and for gamers within the virtual space(s) in which most of these games (and players) exist. The lines between the real and virtual blur as gamers create documents across various modes and genres. This study looks not just at what gamers within these participatory cultures create but also how and why they create it. Method: I used a multi-dimensional case study approach to analyze content from 10 game-related websites. I then applied content analysis and rhetorical analysis to explore what types of technical communication artifacts are created on gaming websites, how such artifacts are created, and how gamers use technical communication to rhetorically represent themselves both socially and professionally within their gaming communities. Results: I present three major findings: (1) a list of genres of games-based technical communication; (2) an analysis of why gamers create such materials, including motivations linked to personal connections, professional connections, reputation, and rhetorical exigence; and (3) a discussion of how gamers write technical communication in the context of their affinity spaces and participatory cultures, as well as the modes and media they use. Conclusion: Players in participatory cultures consistently create game-based materials as part of their social identities, stretching across modes and media to suit their rhetorical goals. To that end, we have much to learn by studying not just online gaming communities but, specifically, the technical communication artifacts these groups individually and collectively create. Keywords: gaming, documentation, participatory culture, online communities, genre ecologies

Practitioner’s • Players often write technical com- technical communication, but gamers Takeaway: munication as a means of perform- create the vast majority of the content. ing roles within their participatory • Gamers most often write technical cultures and affinity groups. communication because of personal • There are 24 genres of technical connections, professional connections, communication created within games- and/or reputation. based participatory cultures. These • Almost all games-based technical genres connect in different ways and are communication is single-authored, created using various forms of media. although it is nearly always subject to • Website administrators establish intense scrutiny from others within the framework for games-focused the author’s participatory culture.

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Introduction (Spinuzzi, 2003), and affinity spaces (Gee, 2005) to explore how gamers construct technical communication Gamer-constructed technical communication, from both individually and collaboratively within their social mods to manuals, is abundant and necessary to the groups and across virtual spaces. social construction of online gaming groups. In fact, gamers often write, create, construct, and research Technical Communication, Transmedia, various and complex technical genres—and they do it and Participatory Culture for free, in their spare time. As Mason (2013) writes, documentation “is no longer a one-way form of A recent study by McNely (2017) explored multi-genre communication transmitted from game developers to transmedia applications through the lens of storytelling gamers but an activity whose analysis, composition, and and narrative. Using Spinuzzi’s (2003) concept of genre distribution has been taken out of developer’s offices ecologies, McNely (2017) discussed how “coordinated and college classrooms and into the third spaces of genres intermediate one another so that small changes online communities” (p. 220). Thus, technical genres— in one genre affect the others” (McNely, 2017, p. 459). including tutorials, manuals, strategy guides, and For example, a social media post might tell one part walkthroughs—are now created both by gamers and for of a person’s story, while texts to a friend and emails gamers and are constructed within the virtual space(s) to colleagues would fill in some of the blanks; all three in which most of these games (and players) exist. genres (social media posts, emails, and texts) would This is, perhaps, especially true for online video work together to tell the full narrative of a person’s games, in which players enact, interact, create, and experience (McNely, 2017). Any small change to the communicate across and within the bounds of virtual narrative in any one of those genres would affect the spaces. In massively multiplayer online role-playing readers’ experiences of the other; it would change the games (MMORPGs), for example, the lines between overall story. the real and the virtual blur as gamers create, design, Similarly, games-based technical communication edit, and transform documents in both print and digital genres inform one another in intersectional and often formats across various modes (e.g., audio, video, text, interesting ways. Because of this, we cannot think of and graphics) and genres (e.g., tutorials, manuals, transmedia in technical communication contexts merely strategy guides, walkthroughs, mods, and wikis). In as media created in various forms (Jenkins, 2011). this way, the creation of technical content related to Rather, we must look at how various forms of media MMORPGs embodies transmedia participatory culture inform and interrelate with other forms—and especially (Jenkins et al., 2006) and affinity spaces (Gee, 2005) how they work together to form a whole. In the context in that it is created across traditional boundaries of of games-based technical communication, transmedia genre, mode, and authorship. Knowledge is constructed is enacted across the larger gaming community; each collaboratively and for the common good, and is almost genre works alongside the others to tell a story or solve a always created collaboratively in the spirit of improving problem. For instance, one player might publish a text- the gaming community to which the authors belong. based strategy guide while someone else might post a In this article, I describe the results of a video walkthrough on the same topic; yet another group multidimensional case study I conducted to identify the might host a podcast on the issue, while others might various genres and modes of technical communication be discussing various problem-solving strategies on that players create. Specifically, I present 24 categories discussion forums. A player looking for answers to his or of technical communication, including guidebooks, her problem might visit any or all of these to complete descriptions, policies, and tutorials. I then look not his or her understanding of the issue and help him or just at what gamers within these participatory cultures her move toward the game. In this way, transmedia create but also how they create it (e.g., individually vs. approaches to games-based technical communication collaboratively, textually vs. graphically) and why (e.g., help users solve problems, collaborate with one another, rhetorical purpose and representation, intrinsic vs. and understand diverse perspectives on how to play. extrinsic motivation). To that end, I use theories from This is also a popular approach when writing participatory culture (Squire, 2011), genre ecologies documentation and other instructional content. As

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authors more clearly define how their readers use and too often considered ‘secondary’ to the primary work respond to various modes of texts, they deliver content of the programmer” (Maher, 2011, p. 395). Without a in multiple ways. Images are added, interactivity “shared goal,” the value of the technical communicator is anticipated, and how-to videos are used as an is discounted, and the communication (in Maher’s accompaniment or even alternative to traditional, example, writing “effective documentation”) will collapse text-based documentation (Swarts, 2012). Digital (Maher, 2011, p. 395). In gaming, this may occur when documentation is now expanding to include not just someone who deems him or herself an expert does not static text but also multimedia content, user-generated value the contributions of a new player (“noob”). To content, and collaboratively open content such as be successful, all authors (whether experts or noobs, knowledge bases and wikis (Selber, 2010). In these and technical communicators or subject matter experts) other similar texts, transmedia applications go beyond must think rhetorically. They must collaboratively and merely producing technical communication in various respectfully commit to a common shared purpose, modes; each mode also informs the other, helping form a shared audience to whom they are speaking, and a a fuller picture for the users. shared context through which they are communicating. Yet, in order for technical communication to In other words, effective transmedia communication successfully cross genres and media, the collaborating requires the existence of a participatory culture. authors must agree about the rhetorical situation of the Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, and Weigel (2006) message. Without a shared understanding of audience, defined participatory culture as “a culture with relatively purpose, and context, the transmedia communication low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, will fail. As McNely (2017) explained, transmedia strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, content necessitates “a clear, collective understanding and some type of informal mentorship whereby what of the object of activity” (p. 457). Authors must work is known by the most experienced is passed along to alongside their readers to collectively agree on the novices” (p. 3). This definition most certainly describes topics, problems to be solved, and possible solutions. most gaming communities I have been a part of— They must provide each other with enough information whether in-game or as part of a gaming, fan, or guild so that the text—whether created with words, images, website—and is certainly true for MMORPGs that audio, or video—is successfully communicated. When I have played and analyzed as well. Some of the best creating games-based technical communication, role-playing games I have researched allow for creativity authors must agree on the problem that needs to be via avatar customization, emoting, and other forms of solved, the questions that need to be answered, and the expression; they encourage positive community and information that needs to be communicated. As anyone player interactions, particularly through communication who has ever visited an online discussion forum might channels and teams/guilds; and they allow players to imagine, those participating do not always agree on create and share content with one another, such as mods, specific approaches and views, but, for the dialogue, skins, and add-ons (see, for example, Finseth, 2018). to be successful they must agree on a shared audience The best MMORPGs are often those with the strongest (e.g., who is experiencing the problem), purpose (e.g., sense of participatory culture both within and outside of to solve a specific problem), and context (e.g., someone the game. has a problem with a particular area of a game). Once In digital gaming environments, particularly in they have a shared understanding of the rhetorical MMORPGs, the “players themselves become the situation, they can better communicate and work content, making them emblematic of participatory together toward a common goal. media culture” (Squire, 2011, p. 12, emphasis in We see issues of shared understanding occur in the original). Without the participation of the culture of technical communication workplace, as well. In fact, gamers, the game itself could not exist. Furthermore, Maher (2011) wrote of the necessity of a “shared goal” this culture of participatory action extends to all facets between technical communicators and subject matter of the game, including its technical communication. experts (p. 395). Too often, a subject matter expert values “the production of software” whereas the technical Gamers are surrounded by walk-throughs, guides, communicator values the “documentation, which is even videos explaining and demonstrating almost

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every nuance of the game. If, for example, a player common goals. Regardless, we cannot discount this wants to become a good tank, he or she can find element of performance when considering the technical forum threads, spreadsheets, and guides explaining communication genres that players create and why. gear, strategy, or how to deal with annoying damage If a gamer is a role-player, that gamer might also dealers who don’t do their jobs. (Squire, 2011, p. 13). perform in the literal sense of the word by taking on the speech patterns, manner of dress, and other attributes of Technical communication in gaming spaces and on the character the gamer is playing. Serious role-players are games-related websites is thus participatory action; it often judged on their performance by others in the affinity is in and of itself an example of participatory culture. space. Is the speech authentic? Does the player’s character The content is vast, the community is supportive, have a believable backstory? Does the player behave individuals share ideas and mentor one another, and appropriately in the group? Can the player respond well groups work together toward common goals. to shifting circumstances? In my experience, serious role- Gee (2005) might say this is because online gaming playing affinity spaces are built upon discipline and skill; communities are not just participatory; they are also as such, much of the technical communication genres affinity spaces, in that gamers are not brought together created within such groups are built upon rules, policies, merely because of shared goals or circumstances but procedures, and guides. Role-playing groups cannot afford also because of their own interests and passions. Affinity for someone who is not serious about role-playing to ruin spaces are comprised of any or all of the following it for the rest of the players; they cannot allow someone features: (1) a spirit of “common interests, endeavours, to break character, and, often, offending players will be goals or practices”; (2) shared “common space”; (3) kicked out of the group. Thus, such affinity spaces often a generator of new content and “relationships”; (4) a have many rules that must be followed even to join in the vocabulary of actions and words that is “transformed role-playing. They may even hold auditions for players to by the actions and interactions” of those in the space; ensure that they have done their research and are taking (5) a source of “intensive and extensive knowledge” it seriously. The technical communication genres created from the group; (6) individuals who seek, “connect,” or in these groups are therefore done out of a necessity of “network” their own knowledge; (7) widely “dispersed” protecting the affinity space and helping players succeed knowledge; (8) an acceptance of “tacit knowledge”; and have fun. (9) multiple “forms and routes to participation”; (10) If a player participates in group-based gaming several ways to gain reputation or status within the activities such as raiding or running dungeons, the space; and (11) “porous” leadership with leaders as player often will be judged by others in the group based “resources” (Gee, 2005, pp. 225–228). Within the on his or her skill, attributes, talents, and gear; the space, then, there is a participatory culture comprised player’s performance will be judged. As Nardi (2010) of individuals working toward shared rhetorical explained from her research of World of Warcraft goals and contexts. Gamers participate in transmedia (WoW), gamers’ “obsession with gear derived from communication by choosing to participate (as part of their interest in performance. WoW required skill, but a participatory culture) in an affinity space (brought if two players of equal skill competed the better geared together by common passions, problems, and interests). player won” (p. 58). Therefore, players began to figure When gamers write technical communication out how to get the best gear—and what the best gear artifacts, they are often doing so as a response to acting was—so they could enhance their performance. The and performing roles within their affinity spaces and same is true for talents, attributes, and other aspects of participatory cultures. Gaming is a performance-based gameplay. As players master these areas of gameplay, activity (see, e.g., Nardi, 2010). When gamers play they also start to brag, share, and help others by posting within virtual worlds—particularly MMORPGs—they their discoveries online by way of tools, calculators, and are performing a particular role for themselves and shareable content to help one another do better within for the larger affinity spaces of which they are a part. the game. They write manuals, film video walkthroughs, Such groups may be friends they play with, guilds or and pen elaborate strategy guides. In short, they write teams they join, or random partnerships with strangers technical communication as a part of their performance whom they meet in-game and with whom they have within their affinity spaces.

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Research Approach and Method positioning themselves socially and/or rhetorically within a participatory culture or affinity space? Much has been written with regard to the links between technical communication and game documentation To code the technical communication genres that (see, for instance, how this discussion evolves via exist within gaming communities, I relied upon Mason’s Eyman, 2008; Greene & Palmer, 2011; and Mason, (2013) list of genres, which included: (1) guidebooks, 2013). In 2016, Jennifer deWinter and Stephanie Vie (2) technical descriptions, (3) policies, (4) tutorials, (5) co-edited a special issue of Technical Communication FAQs, (6) maps, (7) reviews, and (8) end-user licensing Quarterly that spoke to the relevance of games in agreements (EULAs) (p. 221). I then categorized those our field. As the co-editors pointed out, games which existed but fell outside of these boundaries, as and technical communication are natural partners well as coded for those that were multimedia in nature in research “because the field already works at the and/or transmedia in delivery and use. intersection of the technical and symbolic—and games As I coded for authorship, I noted, in particular, are both” (deWinter & Vie, 2016, p. 151). However, when an artifact was created by a user (one person) or a little has been explored when considering transmedia, community (two or more people). If a particular page games, and technical communication genres. For this did not have an author listed—such as on a page of study, I was therefore motivated to explore a more rules and policies about a website—I listed the author as robust span of genres, modes, and rhetorical purposes the site. I created additional codes to track for mode(s) of games-based technical communication. of communication, including audio, video, text, and Because I was most interested in qualitatively graphics. (Because all of the cases I studied were websites, exploring genres of technical communication and modes I didn’t use a separate category for print-based artifacts.) of communication created amongst gaming communities, I also analyzed the authors’ stated intrinsic and I conducted a multi-dimensional case study wherein I extrinsic motivations for posting such content. For analyzed the content from 10 game-related websites. example, authors would often explain why they were (See Appendix for a complete list of gaming sites.) As I posting the technical communication artifact(s). Such (Finseth, 2018) have previously explained, case studies insights led me to rhetorically analyze the ways in which “focused on discovering, evaluating, and describing” can be the authors were not just writing content but were also approached from various points of view and then applied performing it—often across boundaries of both form effectively in research related to games and technical (media) and content (genre). communication (p. 35). Such approaches are multi- Finally, I also wanted to explore the rhetorical dimensional, in that the case study analysis accounts for exigencies for creating each of the genres. As a starting various genres and modes (see, also, Creswell & Plano point, I considered Mason’s (2013) eight rhetorical Clark, 2006; Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007; Yin, 2008). purposes within game genres, which follow these I then applied content analysis to the case study patterns of genre and purpose: data to explore what types of technical communication 1. Guidebooks ➞ Describe artifacts are created on gaming websites, how such 2. Descriptions ➞ Detail artifacts are created, and how gamers use technical 3. Policies ➞ Manage communication to rhetorically represent themselves 4. Tutorials ➞ Instruct both socially and professionally within their gaming 5. FAQs ➞ Answer communities. 6. Maps ➞ Navigate Specifically, the research questions I explored were: 7. Reviews ➞ Evaluate • What types of technical communication artifacts 8. EULAs ➞ Define do administrators of game websites, players, and members of games-based affinity spaces create? I also took the opportunity to expand on this • How are such artifacts authored (e.g., individually list and uncover additional rhetorical purposes for vs. collaboratively, textually vs. graphically)? authoring games-based technical communication. • How do gamer-authors use the creation of Through the lens of Killingsworth (2005), I looked technical communication content as a means of at the author, audience, and value of each genre

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Carly Finseth of games-based technical communication to look established are meant to be ecological; they should be specifically at the following areas: taken as shifting and in flux, depending on the authors, • Author: What is revealed through the author’s readers, and context. persona? Looking closely, patterns emerge as to how and • Audience: The opportunities to appeal directly to where content becomes created and distributed amongst the reader. lines of responsibility and power. For example, site • Value: What is accepted by both author and reader? owners understandably tend to focus their content in the areas of legal protection (including legalese, policies, By triangulating these findings, I could get closer and informational website copy) and profit generation to answering my questions about why and how gamers (advertising and recruiting). Gamers, on the other create technical documentation. hand, tend to focus their contributions on social aspects (chats, comments, and forums) and instructional Results guidance (guidebooks, tutorials, walkthroughs, and shareables). The areas that meet in the middle include The results from this study fell into three distinct rules for behavior (which are written by website categories: (1) To what genre did the technical administrators, as well as by leadership within various communication artifact belong? (2) Who authored affinity spaces), as well as those that cross rhetorical and it? and (3) How did the author use technical transmedia lines; such as maps, technical descriptions, communication to create or reinforce rhetorical, and multimedia content; which are often both created social, and/or online identities among the group? In by site users and gamers as a means of communicating the following sections, I review my results through the complex information using multiple of modes of lenses of genre, authorship, and identity/meaning. communication. Power dynamics are thus formed, often creating complex boundaries of who “owns” what Genres of Games-Based content and how ownership is determined. Technical Communication Website administrators set the framework—by First, I identified 24 genres of technical communication designing and hosting the website, creating the that appeared across all of the gaming communities I rules, recruiting employees, ensuring legalities are studied. See Table 1 for a complete list. The genres, of met, promoting advertising, and providing customer course, are not forever fixed. Particularly with those service. Gamers work within that framework to design, genres that are constructed communally, such works create, write, edit, and publish the vast majority of are continually in flux, and some of the content created the usable content that is published on those websites, by gamers and gaming communities cannot be labeled sometimes without the financial reward that the site within one set category. Just as technical communication administrators receive in the form of advertising dollars shifts as a mode and means of expression, so do the types and other revenue. It was therefore interesting to of technical communication that are created by and explore why exactly these gamers were sharing content amongst gamers. Technical communication genres are with one another—and with profit-receiving website part of a greater ecology in which the genres “co-evolve: administrators. I wondered, then: What, exactly, were changes in one lead to changes in others” (Spinuzzi, they getting out of it? 2003, p. 100). A good example of this in games-based technical communication is the manual, which, in some Who Are the Gamers Who Write Technical contexts, may stand alone as its own (often developer- Communication and Why Do They Write It? created) genre but, in other contexts, may be a part of The results of my study showed three specific categories the instructions genre (created by either developers or of motivation that authors cited for posting games- users) that is read alongside tutorials, walkthroughs, and related technical communication online: guides. Likewise, maps often shift in and out of genres, 1. Personal Connections: The satisfaction of helping sometimes authored and used alone and other times others and answering questions; making friends embedded within another genre or document, such as and building communities; guild marketing and a tutorial or walkthrough. Therefore, the categories I recruiting; doing it because it’s “fun.”

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2. Professional Connections: Possibilities of approach to determining the best way to improve networking with game developers; a chance to performance in a game) as both a way to connect with build a professional portfolio. other people and a means of bragging about his or her 3. Reputation: Bragging rights and increased visibility own achievements, gear, and skill. for achievements; earning badges, levels, rewards, Here, we begin to see the role that participatory ranks, titles, or points within the structure of the culture plays in the construction of games-based website; showing support for a game or a playable technical communication artifacts: players helping class or race. one another, bragging to one another, and making personal and meaningful connections. As Clinton et Sometimes, motivations overlapped—such as when al. (2006) described this phenomenon, “Participatory a gamer would say he or she enjoyed providing answers culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to questions about theorycrafting (the methodological to the explosion of new media technologies that make

Table 1. Genres and authorship of technical communication artifacts in gaming communities Genre Site- User- Community- Constructed Constructed Constructed Advertising (Ads / Sales Copy / Merchandising / Donation Links) x Chat x x x Cheats and Code x x Commentary (Blogs / Comments / Lists / Podcasts / Ratings / Reviews / Vlogs) x x x Customer Support (Help / Feedback) x Forum Posts x x x Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) x x x Graphics (Logos / Images / Designs) x x x Instructions (Guidebooks / Manuals / Strategy Guides / Tutorials / Walkthroughs) x x Job Postings / Recruitment Copy x Legalese (Disclaimers / End-User License Agreements / Permissions) x Maps x x x News and Newsletters x x Rules and Policies x x Screenshots x x x Shareables (Mods / Addons / Plugins / Skins / Textures) x x Social Media (Links / Feeds / Posts) x x x Streaming (Live and Recorded) x x x Technical Descriptions x x x Tools (Character Profiles / Planners / Theorycrafting / Calculators / x x x Transmog / Spreadsheets) Trivia x x x Wallpapers / Multimedia Downloads x x x Website Copy x Wikis x x x

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Carly Finseth it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, to the readers (pathos). Narrative, examples, and appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful metaphors are used to evoke emotional responses from new ways” (p. 8). As website developers allow gamers the readers as authors describe, often in vast detail, their to annotate, create, reimagine, and publish technical issues, problems, and emotional responses as a way to communication with and on their platforms, they are evoke emotion (positive or negative) from their readers. also providing a platform within which a games-based Finally, the value of a particular technical participatory culture can thrive. communication is established when both the writer and the reader agree upon shared realities. This appears the Rhetorical Lenses: Author, Audience, and Value most in genres such as technical descriptions, maps, When I applied Killingsworth’s (2005) rhetorical lenses news, rules and policies, and legalese—those genres to look at the author, audience, and value of each genre which require that the author and the reader are on the of games-based technical communication, I found that same page (logos). Often, such genres are used as a way the rhetoric of games-based technical communication of establishing that common ground before issues could is directly linked to performances within the affinity exist; other times, they are used as a way of pointing to spaces. That is, the rhetoric of the text is performed; the established expectations for behavior within the group author, audience, and value are negotiated based on the or as a justification for excluding a certain person or for shared performances that occur within the participatory punishing a certain behavior. culture and affinity space. Value in this context is also about establishing a For instance, the author reveals him or herself the shared purpose or motivation for creating the technical most when authoring technical communication genres, communication. In games-based affinity spaces, this is such as instructions, tools, and commentary. Here, often about establishing a shared problem that needs writers are most likely to reveal their personalities and to be solved, a question that needs to be answered, or the personalities of their avatars through posturing, a concern that needs to be addressed. As part of the bragging, description, illustration, or discussion. As negotiation that players enact both within and outside Killingsworth (2005) pointed out, the writer “is a of virtual games, they agree upon the contributing complex individual who selectively reveals (or invents) value of the work. (And if they do not agree, this is aspects of character pertinent to the rhetorical work where comments, blogs, reviews, and other forms of required at the moment” (p. 252). In that way, what is commentary or criticism are introduced.) Specifically, posted online is what the author wishes us to see—and I found there are nine contributing rhetorical you can often see the authors’ performances within the purposes—or shared values—of games-based technical technical communication pieces they write; they are communication. These reasons are: playing roles for their audience. In this way, the “truth” 1. To instruct or help others; solve problems (e.g., shifts based on what the affinity group collectively tutorials, guides, manuals) accepts. Usually, authors (and/or their avatars) are 2. To provide information (e.g., databases, tools) accepted within the group for exactly who they say they 3. To ask or answer a question (e.g., forums) are, without question; however, that depends on the 4. To give updates, news, or commentary (e.g., blogs) quality of performance by the authors. Therefore, the 5. To improve usability (e.g., mods, addons, plugins) majority of games-related technical communication 6. To start or prevent discussion/debate (e.g., content hinges upon this rhetorical representation of questions, posts, social media) author perhaps even above all else, as the success of it 7. To post bragging rights (e.g., achievements, raids, depends largely on the author’s ethos. gear) When an author appeals directly to the reader, 8. To meet legal or business requirements (e.g., the appeal happens most commonly in forum posts, website copy, sales copy, EULAs) comments, and wikis. This is the context in which the 9. To increase reputation; to get the authors and/or authors are often explicit in responding directly to a their guild more publicity or exposure reader (or group of readers) and often in response to a specific problem or question. Here, too, is where we As players move amongst and between affinity unsurprisingly also see most of the emotional appeals spaces and participate as part of a collective culture,

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they discover they have shared values with other a link to a video he or she uploaded or add some gamers and those values include at least one of the screenshots of his or her own experiences to further above motivations. detail the instructions for users of various learning types. This provides additional insights into transmedia How Gamers Write Technical Communication: creation and use of technical communication artifacts, A Look at Identity and Authorship in that players often respond to one another’s questions Almost all the content from the websites I studied is and problems by jumping in and out of various modes single authored. At the same time, most of the content (e.g., text-based vs. video instructions) and media (e.g., is also socially constructed either through comments answering a discussion forum post on their laptop while or discussions. Much in the same way that Wikipedia watching a YouTube video on their phone). content is policed by its users, it is rare for games- As I coded for the various ways in which games- based content to exist that has not been confirmed or based technical communication genres are expressed in contested by other players. In fact, the site developers online spaces, I noted several genres that often utilize one almost always seem to allow for this. Every site I studied or more ways of communicating, whether through audio, allows users to discuss or refute the information that video, text, and/or graphics. Table 2 shows which genres has been posted—even the static, text-based content— utilize which modes of media and in what ways they whether via a commenting feature, forum post, wiki often overlap. In almost all technical communication interface, feedback form, or email address. Some genres created by gamers or games-based communities, authors even give special thanks to outside editors or there is significant overlap among modes of media. In other gamers for their input. fact, the only forms of technical communication that did Specifically, individual authors create almost all not specifically include two or more areas were Legalese, of the guidebooks, tutorials, technical descriptions, Rules and Policies, Customer Support, and Job Postings, policies, maps, shareables, screenshots, FAQs, character as the site authors did not choose to include graphics as profiles, theorycrafting, and other content posted an explicit part of that content (separate from the site on these websites—at least at first. After the content logo or other website design elements that exist outside is published, others often respond with comments, of the written content). feedback, Q&A, alternative means of looking at the same problem (such as providing a different guidebook Conclusion or tutorial), and supporting tools or shareables. The end result is content that has usually been written As we consider what, why, and how games-based and rewritten by more than one person, sometimes technical communication is created, it is important several times, even if only one author is attributed. to remember that such definitions and categorizations The exception is gaming sites that publish works by cannot be seen as static and permanent. Rather, undisputed experts on a particular topic. Usually, such as technologies evolve, so will the ways in which expertise is demonstrated through talent and seniority; participatory cultures and online communities will use the players with the highest stats, the best gear, the them as a means of communicating and connecting proven skill, and the longevity to both the game itself with one another. and its overall game genre can sometimes simply post Players who are immersed in games-based their writing as sole authors. (Even then, though, others participatory cultures are consistently creating and often leave comments, if the genre allows.) archiving game-based materials as part of their social Games-based technical communication artifacts identities; these technical, “genres are the means are almost always open to commentary, scrutiny, through which individuals learn to be active members feedback, and the social construction of the group. of a specific community, being shaped by the genre It was interesting to note how often another member even as they use it to reshape their environment” of the participatory culture would respond to or edit (Mason, 2013, p. 220). They create to help, to inspire, someone else’s work by recreating a solution using a to start dialogues, to connect, to imagine, and to different form of media. For instance, if a text-based make games easier to play and game-related technical walkthrough was unclear, a commenter may provide communication easier to understand. To that end,

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Carly Finseth we have much to learn by studying not just online the motivations behind those who enjoy writing gaming communities but, specifically, the technical documentation and who do so—in vast quantities—as communication artifacts that these groups individually hobbies in their spare time. “As a teacher of technical and collectively create. writing,” Mason (2013) wrote, “I am intrigued by this I have attempted, in this study, to categorize the expression of love for a technical genre. I imagine that various modes and methods that novice technical literature teachers often have students claim to love communicators employ when writing within and poetry or novels, but I have never had a student claim for games-related spaces. Although this is just the to love a process description or white paper” (p. 219). start, I hope it pushes other technical communicators I, too, am intrigued, but now that I incorporate game to further explore and discover what technical writing into my technical communication courses, I communication artifacts gamers create and why. have students declare that they “love” technical writing. After all, there is much to be explored by uncovering Perhaps it is not the medium, then, but the message.

Table 2. Genres and transmedia modes of technical communication in gaming communities Genre Audio Video Text Graphics Advertising (Ads / Sales Copy / Merchandising / Donation Links) x x x x Chat x x x Cheats and Code x x x x Commentary (Blogs / Comments / Lists / Podcasts / Ratings / Reviews / Vlogs) x x x x Customer Support (Help / Feedback) x Forum Posts x x Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) x x Graphics (Logos / Images / Designs) x x Instructions (Guidebooks / Manuals / Strategy Guides / Tutorials / Walkthroughs) x x x x Job Postings / Recruitment Copy x Legalese (Disclaimers / End-User License Agreements / Permissions) x Maps x x x x News and Newsletters x x x x Rules and Policies x Screenshots x x Shareables (Mods / Addons / Plugins / Skins / Textures) x x x x Social Media (Links / Feeds / Posts) x x x x Streaming (Live and Recorded) x x

Technical Descriptions x x Tools (Character Profiles / Planners / Theorycrafting / Calculators / Transmog / x x Spreadsheets) Trivia x x x x Wallpapers / Multimedia Downloads x x x x Website Copy x x Wikis x x

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References of software documentation. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 41(4), 367-401. Bazerman, C., & Prior, P. (Eds.) (2004). What writing Mason, J. (2013). Video games as technical does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing communication ecology. Technical Communication texts and textual practices. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Quarterly, 22(3), 219–236. Erlbaum Associates. McNely, B. (2017). Moments and metagenres: Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A., & Coordinating complex, multigenre narratives. Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of Journal of Business and Technical Communication, participatory culture: Media education for the 21st 31(4), 443–480. century. Chicago, IL: MacArthur Foundation. Nardi, B. (2010). My life as a night elf priest: An Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2006). Designing anthropological account of World of Warcraft. Ann and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Oaks, CA: SagePublications. Selber, S. (2010). A rhetoric of electronic instruction sets. deWinter, J., & Vie, S. (2016). Games in technical Technical Communication Quarterly, 19(2), 95–117. communication. Technical Communication Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Compound mediation in software Quarterly, 25(3), 151–154. development: Using genre ecologies to study Eyman, D. (2008). Computer gaming and technical textual artifacts. In C. Bazerman & D. Russell communication: An ecological framework. (Eds.), Writing selves writing societies: Research from Technical Communication, 55(3), 242–250. activity perspectives. Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Finseth, C. (2018). Teach like a gamer: Adapting the Clearinghouse. instructional design of digital role-playing games. Squire, K. (2011). Video games and learning: Teaching Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. and participatory culture in the digital age. New Gall, M. D., Gall, J. P., & Borg, W. R. (2007). York, NY: Teachers College Press. Educational research: An introduction (8th ed.). New Swarts, J. (2012). New modes of help: Best practices York, NY: Pearson Education. for instructional video. Technical Communication, Gee, J. P. (2005). Semiotic social spaces and affinity 59(3), 195–206. spaces: From The age of mythologyto today’s Yin, R. K. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods schools. In D. Barton & K. Tusting (Eds.), Beyond (4th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. communities of practice: Language, power and social context (pp. 214–232). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge About the Author University Press. Greene, J., & Palmer, L. (2011). It’s all in the Carly Finseth is the Senior Vice President of Education game: Technical communication’s role in game at Northwest Lineman College. Her research areas documentation. Intercom, 58(10), 6–9. include workplace training, technical communication, Jenkins, H. (2011). Transmedia 202: Further user experience, and instructional design. Finseth is reflections.Confessions of an Aca-Fan. Retrieved author of the book Teach Like a Gamer: Adapting the from http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/ Instructional Design of Digital Role-Playing Games, as defining_transmedia_further_re.html well as several peer-reviewed academic journal articles. Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, Her experience includes 17 years in industry, including A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the project management for the trade utilities. Finseth challenges of participatory culture: Media education holds a B.S. from Oregon State University, an M.A. for the 21st century. The MacArthur Foundation. from Clemson University, and a Ph.D. in Technical Retrieved from https://www.macfound.org/media/ Communication and Rhetoric from Texas Tech article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF University. She is available at [email protected]. Killingsworth, M. J. (2005). Rhetorical appeals: A revision. Rhetoric Review, 24(3), 249–263. Manuscript received 30 August 2018, revised 12 April 2019; Maher, J. H. (2011). The technical communicator as accepted 1 June 2019. evangelist: Toward critical and rhetorical literacies

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Appendix

Cases Used in this Study CurseForge (curseforge.com) GameFAQs (gamefaqs.gamespot.com) Gamepedia (gamepedia.com) Icy Veins (icy-veins.com) Mixer (mixer.com) Noxxic (noxxic.com) The Tech Game thetechgame.com)( Twitch (twitch.tv) Wowhead (wowhead.com) YouTube Games (gaming.youtube.com)

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 295 Tools of the Trade Review of Four Books on Content Strategy By Kit Brown-Hoekstra and Alyssa Fox, Guest Reviewers

Introduction reader can focus on the new concepts without getting hung up on specific industry requirements. For this special issue on content strategy, we selected At its best, modeling is technology agnostic and several books that examine different aspects of content considers not just the current need but also future strategy and that would appeal to both novice and needs of the content. By starting with the big picture of expert content strategists. Richard Rumfelt’s book, Good domain modeling and making it a visual map instead Strategy, Bad Strategy, takes a look at corporate strategic of a spreadsheet, Atherton and Hane help the team initiatives and shows us why so many of them fail. work together to define the boundaries and scope He then tells us how to build good strategies. Colleen of the project, while also identifying areas where the Jones’s book, The Content Advantage [Clout 2.0], helps project connects to other, related domains. The domain us build the business case and does a great job of model can then be used to inform every aspect of the discussing the metrics that upper management might project. It is akin to the object-oriented design found in care about. Mike Atherton and Carrie Hane show us software development, and this parallel comes in handy how to create a content strategy in their book, Designing when you need to talk to the database administrator to Connected Content. Last but not least, Meghan Casey’s set up your content management system. book, The Content Strategy Toolkit, gives us practical The content model arises from the domain model, advice and loads of job aids to help us build our content and Chapter 6 does a great job of showing how the strategy. Each of these books belongs on your bookshelf, two models relate to each other and of explaining how and all are great references. the decision-making process might work in practice. By breaking it down into easily digestible chunks and Designing Connected Content: Plan and Model using their experiences to illustrate the points, they make Digital Products for Today and Tomorrow information architecture and content strategy accessible (Reviewed by Kit Brown-Hoekstra) to a broader audience. And every technical communicator Reading Designing Connected should be able to do a basic content model. Content: Plan and Model Digital The second half ofDesigning Connected Content Products for Today and Tomorrow focuses on extrapolating the content model into felt like I was talking to my structure and templates, and then publishing the favorite teammates and geeking content. They beat the “one resource per topic” drum out on a topic that we love. I and explain why this is important for re-use and found myself writing “YES!” in content management, as well as why chunking helps the margin on every other page. you manage workflows and maximize re-use. Each Atherton and Hane are irreverent, chapter in this half moves deeper into the process knowledgeable, practical, and conversational as they of creating content and getting it into the wild. walk the reader through the process of learning about a Chapter 10 wraps things up with their lessons learned, domain and then creating a content model and developing a business case, and metrics. taxonomy to support it. While their focus was Web content, this book I loved how they snuck the human side of change is equally applicable to any content project, and the management into their design process and how they book would be even stronger with more technical kept the process practical. Using the IA Summit as an communication examples. example to walk the reader through the process lent a Designing Connected Content should be on every familiarity to it that crossed industries because most technical communicator’s bookshelf, and students people have been to at least one conference. The shared would find this an accessible introduction into frame of reference reduces the cognitive load so that the content modeling.

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Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference Overall, Good Strategy Bad Strategy is a timely, and Why It Matters (Reviewed by Alyssa Fox) relevant read. Though many of the case studies stem Today, most organizations hardly from business, it’s applicable to other groups, as well as have time to breathe, steeped in individuals looking to achieve goals successfully. This transformation efforts and doing book is indispensable for those who want to not only more with less. Unfortunately, that better understand strategy but build strategies. results in mediocre outcomes. How did we get here? Rumelt The Content Strategy Toolkit: Methods, argues that it’s a lack of strategy. We Guidelines, and Templates for Getting set goals, create mission statements, Content Right (Reviewed by Kit Brown-Hoekstra) and build tactical plans as substitutes The Content Strategy Toolkit: for strategy, doing what’s fastest and easiest to get Methods, Guidelines, and Templates to the next step. These attempts are bad strategy, for Getting Content Right is a avoiding the difficult choices we must make to navigate how-to content strategy guide and constraints we face. includes downloadable content In contrast, the essential components of good from Peachpit’s website, starting strategy form a “kernel.” The kernel includes a diagnosis with building your business case of the challenge before you, a guiding policy for that and finishing with governance challenge, and coherent actions to carry out the guiding and lifecycle considerations. policy. Too often, we bounce off to fix a problem, before Most sections include a side bar that describes how taking the time to thoroughly understand the problem to use one of the downloadable tools, such as discovery itself. Much of strategy work is trying to discern what’s insights workbook, the stakeholder interview guide, going on, and most people don’t dig deeply enough. the content audit spreadsheet, and more. In addition, The guiding policy is what most people currently margin notes and tips abound. Casey’s style and tone call strategy. There’s an element of truth to that, but are comfortable and friendly, which makes the book an the policy can’t stand on its own. Without diagnosis, easy read and makes the content accessible for even a Rumelt questions how you can explore alternative novice content strategist. policies. Guiding policies should create or draw upon However, even experienced content strategists sources of advantage. will find tidbits they can use. It’s always useful to hear Action is the kernel’s final aspect. Everyone loves how other people handle discovery and stakeholder to “do” things, but if you don’t have a solid diagnosis interviews, and to get ideas for group exercises and and strong guiding policy, you’re heading in the wrong change management. As a specific example, I found it direction. The hardest part of the coherent action is interesting that her content audit spreadsheet is very picking the right actions to do with the right priority. similar to the one I use. I will be taking a closer look to Strategy is more about what “not” to do than what to see where I can make improvements. do, and this realization can be startling. The downloadable tools and job aids alone are Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why worth the book’s cost. The appendix lists all the tools It Matters includes dozens of examples from business, and maps them to where they are discussed. Combined government, and history. While some examples were with the logical, workflow-based organization and almost tediously long, most of them were profound the clear instructions, this is a book every technical peeks into the successes, and more often, the failures, communicator should have and refer to regularly. of various groups building good or bad strategy Like most content strategy books, my biggest into their work. criticism is that it’s overly web-focused. The principles My one disappointment in the book surrounds the and techniques described in The Content Strategy Toolkit Part III section, “Thinking Like a Strategist.” It was apply to many kinds of content. It would be great if we disconnected from the rest of the book’s style, rambling, could get away from the output format focus and look and just not useful. There’s no real new information in more at the function of the content within the company’s this section, and the gems are found in Parts I and II. content ecosystem. I hope that future books do this.

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The Content Advantage [Clout 2.0]: With its focus on web and marketing content, the The Science of Succeeding at Digital book glosses over discussing ways to bring technical Business through Effective Content communication and localization into the mix. For (Reviewed by Kit Brown-Hoekstra) example, when chapter 7 discusses metaphor, it is Jones makes the business case for a perfect opportunity to bring in the importance content as a core competency for of cultural considerations in using metaphor. Yes, every business. To achieve content metaphors are important for helping map the audience’s maturity in her model, companies background and knowledge to the new thing you are need to invest in centralized introducing. However, metaphors tend to be culturally content operations on par with specific, which can cause issues with adoption if you other upper executive (C-level) aren’t careful. Chapter 11 could have done a better job functions. of mapping skills that many technical communicators The best aspects of The already have to the new roles she is proposing in the Content Advantage [Clout 2.0]: The Science of Succeeding content organization, with the most obvious ones being at Digital Business through Effective Contentinclude the content engineer and content designer, areas where hard data that content professionals can reference when technical communication teams are typically ahead of building their own business cases. In addition, chapters marketing communication teams in maturity. 8 and 9 focus on building a content intelligence Overall, The Content Advantage [Clout 2.0] is system (metrics) for determining how your content an excellent resource for consultants and managers is performing, and, in turn, informs your business to help their organizations develop into mature decisions about your content. Jones defines content content organizations. intelligence as “a system of collecting data related to your content and turning it into insight for content About the Author decisions and more” (p. 130). Many, if not most, content organizations do a mediocre job at measuring Kit Brown-Hoekstra is an STC Fellow and former success and these chapters point to more effective Society President, and award-winning consultant. As practices that an organization can use to quickly Principal of Comgenesis, LLC, Kit provides consulting improve. This intelligence helps us speak the C-level’s to her clients on localization and content strategy. She language more effectively. speaks at conferences worldwide and publishes regularly Consequently, the book’s primary audience is the in industry magazines. She recently edited The Language director and manager level in an organization—the people of Localization. responsible for funding and leading content strategy and implementation efforts. It focuses more on the “why,” the Alyssa Fox is a content strategist and marketing leader “what,” and the results than on the “how,” though Jones who thrives on improving customer experience through extensively references other books and resources that do brand consistency, relevant content, and integrated cover the “how.” (Appendix C categorizes the resources sales and support. She’s an STC senior member and mentioned into a convenient list.) currently serves as the Immediate Past President and The Content Advantage [Clout 2.0] is intended Nominating Committee Chair. to guide you in developing a roadmap for your organization, from vision to maturity. Throughout, References Jones emphasizes the importance of data analysis to inform your content strategy and how vital it is that Atherton, Mike, and Carrie Hane. Designing Connected upper management fully embrace and support the Content: Plan and Model Digital Products for Today effort to create a mature organization. She does a good and Tomorrow. 2018. Berkeley, CA: New Riders. job of identifying where the needs of enterprise level [ISBN 978-0-13-476338-5. 222 pages, including companies differ from those of small– and medium– index. US$34.99 (softcover).] sized businesses. The examples, data, and resources Casey, Meghan. The Content Strategy Toolkit: Methods, reinforce her points. Guidelines, and Templates for Getting Content

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Right. 2015. San Francisco, CA: New Riders/ CA: New Riders/Peachpit. [ISBN 978-0-13- Peachpit. [ISBN 978-0-134-10510-9. 235 pages, 515932-3. 230 pages. US$34.99.] including index. US$34.99.] Rumelt, Richard P. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Jones, Colleen. The Content Advantage [Clout 2.0]: Difference and Why It Matters. 2011. New York, The Science of Succeeding at Digital Business NY: Crown Business. [ISBN 978-0-3078-8623- through Effective Content. 2019. San Francisco, 1. 336 pages, including index. US$29.95.]

Table 1: Books On Content Strategy Compared The Content Strategy Designing Connected The Content Advantage Good Strategy, Toolkit Content [Clout 2.0] Bad Strategy Audience Beginner-Intermediate Intermediate Advanced Intermediate-Advanced

Major • Written in a friendly, • Tone and style make it • Practical and easy • Explains the difference Strengths accessible style fun to read to read between good and bad • Provides loads of • Includes change • Lays out the business strategy downloadable job management case for content strategy • Gives loads of examples aids and checklists • Talks about what went • Provides data to back up and case studies • Shows you the wrong as well as what recommendations • Puts the focus on roadmap for creating went well • Recommends ways to diagnosis and a content strategy • Makes modeling more connect with the C-level guiding policy • Gives detailed tips visual • Shows how to develop • Emphasizes the and explanations, a • Explains how to move metrics and ways to importance of knowing handbook for doing from model to reality use them to build the what NOT to do as well content strategy business case as what to do Major • Web-focused • Web-focused rather • Web- and marketing- • Part III gets into the Weaknesses rather than content than content ecosystem focused rather than science of thinking ecosystem focused focused content ecosystem about thinking, which • UX bias (which is OK for focused is probably too much many applications) • The global theory for most people communication sections • Some of the examples are a bit weak are a bit long • Skills mapping section • Academic style of would have been writing makes it drier stronger if technical than some books communicators had been included Comments Belongs on Belongs on every Excellent resource for Good resource for people every technical technical communicator’s anyone who needs to who want to understand communicator’s bookshelf, particularly create a content strategy overall business strategy. bookshelf, especially if you are faced with business case The principles also apply for anyone looking developing content to content strategy. to transition into strategies and models content strategy specific to your domain Rating ***** **** **** *** (5-star scale) Cost (USD) $34.99 $34.99 $34.99 $29.95

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 299 Book Reviews Jackie Damrau, Editor Books Reviewed in This Issue

Wicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain: User Support in the Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Wild and the Role of Technical Communication ...... 301 Clarity and Style ...... 307 Jason Swarts Benjamin Dreyer What Are Your Blind Spots? Conquering the 5 The Secret to Cybersecurity: A Simple Plan to Protect Misconceptions that Hold Leaders Back ...... 301 Your Family and Business from Cybercrime ...... 307 Jim Haudan and Rich Berens Scott E. Augenbaum The Writer’s Style: A Rhetorical Field Guide ...... 302 Writing Successful Science Proposals ...... 308 Paul Butler Andrew J. Friedland, Carol L. Folt, and Jennifer L. Mercer Graphic Design Sourcebook: The 100 Best Lessons in Leadership: The 12 Key Concepts ...... 309 Contemporary Graphic Designers ...... 303 John Adair Charlotte Fiell and Peter Fiell Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process ...... 310 Exercises in Media Writing ...... 304 Mark Baker Vincent Filak Technical Blogging: Amplify Your Influence...... 310 The Craft of Editing ...... 304 Antonio Cangiano Adnan Mahmutović and Lucy Durneen, eds. Four Words for Friend: Why Using More Than One Critical Approaches to Creative Writing ...... 305 Language Matters Now More Than Ever ...... 311 Graeme Harper Marek Kohn An Introduction to Language ...... 306 Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams

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Wicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain: User facilitation of interpersonal communication, and the Support in the Wild and the Role of Technical structuring and interpretation of information. Communication Swarts has written extensively in the past on our Jason Swarts. 2018. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. [ISBN 978-1- relationships with technology. One of his several awards 60732-761-5. 164 pages, including index. US$24.95 (softcover).] for best article or book, for example, is the STC Frank R. Smith Distinguished Article Award for his 2012 If you’re a technical communicator Technical Communication article on using video in engaged in user support, you’ll want help systems. Wicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain is his to grab a copy of Jason Swarts’s deepest and most satisfying probe into the shift that we Wicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain: technical communicators are facing, the many devils User Support in the Wild and the Role in its details, and the immense opportunities that of Technical Communication. This we can enjoy. seminal book addresses perhaps the most important point for us today: Avon J. Murphy “changes in technologies and our Avon J. Murphy is a technical editor in western Washington. A relationships to them are creating new demands for retired college professor and government writer, he is an STC knowledge that are challenging our practices of Fellow, a contractor, and principal in Murphy Editing and Writing knowledge creation achieved through traditional Services, specializing in computer and Web technologies. Avon technical communication genres.…these demands are served as book review editor for Technical Communication for also opening up opportunities to redistribute the work 17 years. of technical communication and reveal opportunities for new kinds of knowledge creation that technical communicators are perfectly able to deliver” (p. 5). What Are Your Blind Spots? Conquering the 5 Wicked, Incomplete, and Uncertain hits on precisely the change that many of us face: the evolution away Misconceptions that Hold Leaders Back Jim Haudan and Rich Berens. 2018. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. from set pieces of knowledge (often manuals) honed [ISBN 978-1-260-12923-6. 162 pages, including index. US$24.00.] by technical communicators to up-to-the-minute information shared by communities of users seeking I love how What Are Your Blind answers to problems unanticipated by product Spots? Conquering the 5 developers, with, seemingly, a lack of input by Misconceptions that Hold Leaders professional documenters. Back dives straight into Simon Swarts labels problems stemming from a Sinek’s “Start with the Why” to kick community-based approach “wicked” in their making it off the first biggest misconception, difficult to plan. In practice, the process of discovering Purpose. An exercise takes you helpful answers to the problems must be recursive through creating a purpose and involve non-experts. Not surprisingly, the middle statement for your company, chapters focus on the workings of user forums to suggesting you invite a few people to collaborate. After generate knowledge. discovering your organization’s purpose, the exercise The concluding chapter, “The Role of Technical leads you into creating your own personal purpose. The Communication,” is uplifting in its turn away from process of discovering your purpose is a powerful the darkness of uncertainty to the many ways that leadership tool that we use in many of our classes when we can thrive. Swarts’s prose becomes more vigorous training our high potentials to get to the next level. as he shows how we can use our familiarity with Establishing that meaningful connection is an effective common users’ tasks to engage individual users, way to drive confidence and empower associates and guide communities in creating useful knowledge, leaders to become more motivated. and coordinate the work of diverse groups. We are The next blind-spot, Story, opens your eyes to the the people who can bring to bear skills in rhetoric, misconception that your company has a compelling negotiation, workflow management, problem solving, story to tell. I’ve often found in creating an eLearning

Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 l Technical Communication 301 Book Reviews

course that learners will respond well to content Kristin Kirkham-Broadhead presented in a scenario-based format. Kristin Kirkham-Broadhead is an Instructional Designer, Tech- Moving into the third blind spot, Engagement, nical Writer, and Director of Learning and Development from you again consider the priorities of your company Dallas, TX. She previously served the STC North Texas Lone which largely include driving/improving engagement Star Community as President from 2009–2010. When she is not scores. The authors cited a Harvard study which writing, she loves scrapbooking, photography, and chasing her identified three main components: intrinsic motivation, son around the house. connectedness and belonging, and pride. Although the authors did not disapprove of these components, they identified their definition of Engagement differently, viewing it as, “the emotional commitment that people The Writer’s Style: A Rhetorical Field Guide Paul Butler. 2018. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. [ISBN 978-1- have to their team, the organization, and the strategies 60732-809-4. 182 pages, including index. US$22.95 (softcover).] of their company. When looking at the fourth leadership blind-spot, In The Writer’s Style: A Rhetorical Trust, I couldn’t wait to see what else I could learn. Field Guide, Butler condenses a trove What I found was a lot of storytelling, perhaps a little of ancient and modern rhetorical too much for this message. Eventually, you will have wisdom into 12 highly readable to choose if your culture is rule-based or value-based. chapters that move at a rapid clip. From there you can figure out how to best approach the Though not a technical writing freedom to trust your people to bring their best talents book, it covers high, middle, and low and skills to the table. style; cites Carolyn Miller, Richard The final blind-spot, Truth, dissects the Lanham, and Jeanne Fahnestock; misconception that associates can come to their leaders contains an excerpt from one of the late Stephen with all problems. Unless the leader is willing to be Hawking’s books; and includes practice exercises vulnerable and create a safe space, most associates relevant to works produced in business and industry. will not feel comfortable rocking the boat. Once While intended for the college classroom, anyone with the floodgates are opened and the truth comes out, an interest in rhetoric and style will find it useful for associates feel reinvigorated and valued that their understanding, appreciating, and making deliberate perspective is being seen and it gives them hope that choices that generate vivid, compelling, and they can finally address the real issues. My biggest doubt powerful prose. in this chapter came with the team post-it note exercise, Though full of ancient rhetorical terms whose used to draw out issues. The exercise would fail if the pronunciation alone may put off readers, Butler uses culture was not comfortable telling the truth already. what is in effect a casual use of appositives to define The most powerful lesson you will walk away with each term, thereby diminishing the intimidation is how to better approach your company and fellow factor. His frequent repetition of rhetorical terms; leaders with a vision that inspires your associates and such as polysyndeton, anastrophe, and anaphora; draws them in to invest in the same purpose. Each followed immediately by their definitions, helps readers chapter clearly takes you on a journey to get you comprehend, remember, and apply ancient Greek comfortable with looking at your company through a devices, tropes, and schemes, whose technical names are different lens to better represent your true objective, alien to most. identify the changes that need to be made for success in Like other books on the subject, Butler explains the future, and how to best approach those changes. that choices in writing must emerge from an understanding of audience, purpose, and context; that effective writers use ethos, pathos, and logos (credibility, passion, and reason); and that writers draw upon the five canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, memory, style, and delivery), to persuade, inform, delight, or move an audience. Unlike other, more dense

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tomes, Butler approaches these subjects not only with Graphic Design Sourcebook: The 100 Best scholarship and finesse, but with a brevity and clarity Contemporary Graphic Designers that makes reading The Writer’s Style a pleasure. As Charlotte Fiell and Peter Fiell. 2019. London, UK: Goodman Fiell. [ISBN 978- he states in the preface, Butler sets out to accomplish 1-78313-016-0. 512 pages. US$45.00 (softcover).] these tasks by showcasing exemplary texts, by analyzing them, and by inviting his readers (students) to apply Graphic Design Sourcebook: The what they have learned using not only the practice 100 Best Contemporary Graphic exercises included throughout the text, but those from a Designers is a visual snapshot of comprehensive list of assignments in chapter 11. graphic design from around the As with any good text on effective writing, Butler world. This book provides a includes excerpts from rhetorical masters like Henry diverse sampling of modern David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, design trends and unique Annie Dillard, Susan Sontag, Rachel Carson, and approaches to visual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He, however, chooses to communication from the printed diversify his literary examples by including not only page to exhibition design and every medium in between. contemporary columnists like David Brooks and Paul The authors emphasize, in the Introduction, a Bruni but also voices from the AIDS crisis, like the late societal shift in medium preference from print to Paul Monette. digital, speculating that traditional graphic design Butler explains that writers educated and trained fundamentals are becoming outdated. Specifically, to draw upon these ancient practices can name, “graphic design has moved from an essentially static recognize, and use them at will, while others internalize medium to one that increasingly possesses a degree and call upon them subconsciously from experience of movement, interactivity, and connectivity” (p. with reading and appreciating brilliant writing. Butler 11). These changes have instilled digital fluency and addresses our current politically charged milieu where technological adaptability as critical skills for new and negative connotations are regularly associated with the experienced designers alike. term “rhetoric.” Regardless, Butler asserts that “… all For technical communicators, the print-to- language is rhetorical” (p. 14), including that used in digital concept is quite familiar. As more technical the character-constrained digital sphere of Twitter. He communicators incorporate graphic design into their also delves into applied linguistics, illustrating how work and more graphic designers create technical mastery of diction, grammar, and syntax can bring content, these once very distinct industries become power to writing. subject to more of the same shifts in skills requirements Anyone, whether student or professional, and consumer demands. interested in either practicing or appreciating effective This sourcebook showcases many designs that are writing will findThe Writer’s Style erudite, engaging, informational or technical, and the corresponding and enlightening. “philosophies” adopted by each designer or agency could serve technical communicators as well. For example: Allen Brown Coralie Bickford-Smith, United Kingdom: “Good Allen Brown is a grant writer and communications specialist design has to serve the purpose it was intended for” for the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities. He (p. 58): As technical communicators we help people completed a B.A. in English from University of North Caroli- understand concepts and complete tasks, but if we lose na–Greensboro and an M.S. in Technical Communication from sight of the content’s purpose, we reduce our users’ Mercer University. chances of success. Hilary Greenbaum, United States: “The content is the design, the design is the content” (p.171): Greenbaum’s approach to editorial design reminds us that the value of content itself has reached new heights, and that content quality has become more an expectation than a demand.

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Heydays, Norway: “We remove noise to add value” covers a wide and appropriate array of topics including (p. 209): The agency’s clean designs represent another grammar basics, style, language, accuracy, interviewing, important objective for technical communicators. and audience focus. Other traditional topics include Regardless of industry, removing excess “noise” to writing for public relations, advertising, and marketing. deliver a clear message is a common goal among all More contemporary topics include writing for the Web communication professionals. and social media, as you would expect. Signal | Noise, United Kingdom: “Touch, swipe, In the law and ethics chapter, I found a most welcome gesture” (p. 369): With the age of artificial intelligence and appropriate reminder of the five freedoms delineated upon us, as communication professionals our factors for in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the freedom success are increasingly impacted by major disruptions of press, speech, assembly, petition, and religion. to the ways in which we create and deliver content and The answer key is clear and effective. I feel I should how consumers interact with it. mention that the paper used in this book is pleasant to Although technical communication and graphic the touch. Exercises in Media Writing is overall, and in design maintain fundamental differences, “effective both content and presentation, “just right” as you can see. communication” remains the primary objective. The authors state, “[W]hat really lies at the heart of graphic Jeanette Evans design is the transmission of concepts, meanings and Jeanette Evans holds an MS in technical communication manage- values” (p. 8). Additionally, “no one should lose sight ment from Mercer University. She has worked with groups such of what graphic design is all about: content” (p. 16). as Philips Medical and Cuyahoga Community College doing tech- In either of these remarks, one could replace “graphic nical writing and supporting courseware development. Jeanette design” with “technical communication.” However, also co-authored an Intercom column on emerging technologies in we should also consider the value of “collaboration” education and is currently NEO STC newsletter co-editor. between fields. If we were asked to break down more silos within our organizations, graphic design and technical communication seem like two perfect The Craft of Editing candidates fit for the challenge. Adnan Mahmutović and Lucy Durneen, eds. 2019. New York, NY: Routledge. [ISBN 978-1-138-49579-1. 210 pages. US$150.00 (hardcover).] Amy Dunbar Amy Dunbar is an STC member and a technical writer for Pearson VUE in Bloomington, MN. She has a degree in biology In The Craft of Editing, the editors and a graduate certificate in technical communication from the offer a unique viewpoint into the University of Minnesota. Amy’s professional interests include process of editing by showing how content marketing and video production. the raw material of a text takes shape through edits, comments, and collaboration between the writer and editor. This book is not a quick Exercises in Media Writing how-to guide for becoming a better Vincent Filak. 2018. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press. [ISBN: 978-1-5443-3810- editor: it is, instead, an in-depth 1. 88 pages. US$35.00 (softcover).] look at the “constant oscillation between what we might consider the near of the writing experience and the “Just right” were the words that more detached, more distant view of the editor” (p. 2). came to mind when reviewing As Mahmutović and Durneen write, “There is no single Exercises in Media Writing. As a formula that can, without problems, be applied to all companion to Dynamics of Media texts. The more advanced the practitioner, the more Writing, what we see in this book intricate the process becomes” (p. 3). Rather than appears to be an effective mix of provide a one-size-fits-all solution to editing, this book useful, interesting materials. shows how each text brings its own challenges and how With fourteen major areas, those challenges were met by editors on a Exercises in Media Writing case-by-case basis.

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The Craft of Editing features published stories from Critical Approaches to Creative Writing literary journals and magazines, including Guernica Graeme Harper. 2019. New York, NT: Routledge. [ISBN 978-1-138-93155-8. Magazine, Orion Magazine, and World Literature Today. 122 pages, including index. US$24.95 (softcover).] Mahmutović and Durneen break the book up into six chapters: the first chapter is an introductory essay by Hundreds of books have been written Mahmutović and Durneen that outlines the structure about the craft of creative writing and theory behind the book, and the other chapters (CW), with topics like how to consist of five case studies that contain the published structure a novel, use symbolism, version of a story, the edits and comments between the build a world, and so on. But in editor and author of the story, and an interview with comparison, little academic the editor(s) and author about the process that went scholarship followed in areas such as into editing and finalizing the story. Seeing how all CW studies, process, or pedagogy. the marked-up copy, comments, and correspondence Academics researching CW tended to between writer and editor add up to a finalized, publish in journals covering literature or rhetoric and professional text shows the reader exactly what stays composition. However, in 2016, after a year of in a text and why, as well as how much of the writing development, Journal of Creative Writing Studies process is collaborative. published its first volume, with editor James Ryan What makes this book worth reading is the writing, “We have reached a critical mass and can no explication of particular edits and comments during longer fit in the marginal spaces of other the conversation sections of the book—these are the disciplines” (p. 1). most entertaining and interesting sections of the book. In literature, “critical approaches” can refer to It is in these sections that editors of all types can learn strategies of analysis or schools of criticism, like post- new skills for working with writers, such as how not to structuralism or reader response. Other fields use the be too intrusive into the writer’s work and how to be term to refer to ways of analyzing research or schools of diplomatic while still holding firm about one’s ideas. thought on topics within the field. I expectedCritical While this book may be “aimed at higher level students Approaches to Creative Writing to provide something of creative writing, from graduate students of MAs of this sort regarding creative writing scholarship, and MFAs to experienced writers” (p. 1), there is still something with the latest research. I was a bit much technical communicators can learn from The disappointed to learn that very few sources are cited, Craft of Editing. Though some technical communicators and this isn’t the academic text I was hoping to find. and editors may not find the focus on creative work What Critical Approaches to Creative Writing does helpful for advancing their craft, many will find provide is an explanation of what CW is and how the information here useful, especially those with a writers practice the art. The introduction reads like a secondary interest in creative writing. lecture in an introductory course, with nods to “form, style, type, genre” (p. 6) as elements recognized in what Dylan Schrader he calls “post-event understanding” of the written work. Dylan Schrader is a graduate student in the MA in Professional The book “consider[s] the actions of creative writing” Communication program at the University of Alabama in Hunts- (p. 14) for readers who are creative writers, and herein ville, where he also works as a grant researcher in the Office for lies a problem: Most experienced creative writers will Proposal Development. have an innate sense of their own process and their own CW definition, so the book’s content might tell the writer what she already knows. The first chapter reviews what Harper calls “features” of literary fiction. After explaining what writing is, he defines imagination and presents some of the ways human imagination works. Chapters two and three cover influences and practices. Influences range from societal and cultural

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to individual experiences, such as the last book read or language and linguistics by presenting complex material other “models” like structured poems (p. 61). Practices in a lighthearted and personal way that included witty are the three steps: pre-writing, writing, and post- quotations…and cartoons” (p. xii), and, indeed, this writing. To help the reader better understand how each edition is no exception. The text’s readability is one step in the writing process functions, he renames them: of its most remarkable characteristics because with foundation, generation, response. He argues that this the content’s breadth and depth, it would be easy renaming and questioning of the process helps “better to lose readers within the first few pages. However, describe” the CW process. For example, he writes Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams are excellent authors that “response” as a term (versus post-writing) “better who write for audiences of varying levels, including capture[s] what occurs in creative writing when we students, graduate students, faculty, and practitioners. consider what we have been doing and the evidence of The content is highly technical with vocabulary what we have done” (p. 75). words and complex linguistic concepts and rules. Chapter four presents tools to help creative writers Each chapter is well designed so that readers know look for evidence in their own process—evidence exactly what words and concepts to pay attention to; that helps writers develop a “critical awareness” of the definitions, descriptions, and well-explained examples “imagination” (p. 94). The last chapter could be the directly follow new information; the writing is clear most useful for those early in a graduate program, and concise; and there are numerous funny quips and because it outlines some ways writers might think about cartoons to break up the information. and then write about their own creative writing practice. Although An Introduction to Language is not broken into sections, the first few chapters define language Kelly A. Harrison and cover how language is formed and structured Kelly A. Harrison, MFA, teaches technical writing at Stanford and its meaning. The next few chapters cover mostly University. In collaboration with a colleague, she recently phonetics, such as sound, sound patterns, and rules, received an NEH grant for curriculum development at San and the last few chapters address issues associated José State University, where she has taught a range of writing with language and society, changes in language, and courses. She has written print and online content for various how language is acquired and processed. Although high-tech companies. language is generally thought of as speech-based, rules and examples of sign languages, such as American Sign Language, are incorporated in every chapter. A summary and references for further reading are part of An Introduction to Language each chapter, and there are pages of exercises as well, Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. 2017. Boston, MA: Cengage. [ISBN 978-1-337-55957-7. 524 pages, including index. US$119.99 which are helpful for classroom use. The only question (softcover)]. that remained with me as I read this book was “this is an introduction to language?” The comprehensive An Introduction to Language has a coverage makes it a useful text for linguistics, education, long tradition that began in 1974 psychology, and cognitive sciences, but it is a text that with the book now in its 11th must be accompanied with careful guidance from an edition. Current edition instructor because it would be easy for those being highlights include an overall introduced to language and its complexities to become revision for “clarity, conciseness, overwhelmed. and currency” (p. xii), a “streamlined edition” (p. xiii), Diane Martinez Diane Martinez is an associate professor of English at Western with fewer chapters and updates Carolina University where she teaches technical and profes- on new developments in linguistics and other relevant sional writing. She previously worked as a technical writer in fields. As far as textbooks are concerned, the book is easy engineering, an online writing instructor, and an online writing to read, follow, and most importantly comprehensive. center specialist. She has been with STC since 2005. When this book’s legacy began, Robert and Vicki Fromkin wanted to “share with students their love of

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Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct The book is intended for a literate generalist Guide to Clarity and Style audience. For technical communicators, Dreyer’s English Benjamin Dreyer. 2019. New York, NY: Random House. [ISBN 978-0-8129- is a book to relax and have fun with. You can consult 9570-1. 296 pages, including index. US$25.00.] your Chicago and Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association throughout your workday, but Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct in your off hours you want to sit back and just enjoy Guide to Clarity and Style attacks the enthusiasm and oftentimes giddy sense of fun with problems of English usage in much language that permeates Dreyer’s English. the same spirit as Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves (2003) and Bill Avon J. Murphy Walsh’s The Elephants of Style (2004). Avon J. Murphy is a technical editor in western Washington. A re- Dreyer is vice president and copy tired college professor and government writer, he is an STC Fellow, chief at Random House, where he a contractor, and principal in Murphy Editing and Writing Services, has been editing for over a specializing in computer and Web technologies. Avon served as quarter of a century. book review editor for Technical Communication for 17 years. He doesn’t particularly concern himself with 98 percent of the details covered by The Chicago Manual of Style and most other style manuals of our trade—steps in the publishing process, translation, mathematical The Secret to Cybersecurity: A Simple Plan to typesetting, citation styles, innuendoes of punctuation, Protect Your Family and Business from Cybercrime etc. What he does focus on is his highly personal take Scott E. Augenbaum. 2019. Forefront Books. [ISBN 978-1-948677-08-0. 192 on making your English prose readable. pages. US$27.00.] He emphasizes the personal element. As a copyeditor, he bases his judgments mostly on what he Unfortunately, it has become has seen, what makes sense, and even what looks visually common to hear about another balanced, preferring the en dashes in “New York–to– Internet security breach. With more Chicago” over the hyphens in “New York-to-Chicago” of our lives being tied daily to the (p. 63). He lets on that he was “stubbornly avoiding Internet, we increasingly have more the topic [of the singular they] till it became personal” to lose if our accounts are (p. 95). Personal also is the way he uses his ear—he compromised. Augenbaum’s book, defends one of his slightly stilted-sounding emendations: The Secret to Cybersecurity: A Simple “There’s a certain tautness in slightly stilted prose that I Plan to Protect Your Family and find almost viscerally thrilling” (p. 253). Business from Cybercrime, breaks down Internet threats Dreyer writes with a pronounced editorial wink: “On and teaches you how to prevent, avoid, or deal with a good day, [copyediting] achieves something between a them in easy to understand terms. really thorough teeth cleaning…and a whiz-bang magic Augenbaum relies heavily on his extensive career in act” (p. xii). We have on the misuse of [sic] to imply your the FBI investigating cybercrime to convey the proper superiority, “It’s the prose equivalent of an I’M WITH weight of poor Internet security. Each point includes STUPID T-shirt and just about as charming” (p. 49). He a real-life example of how people were defrauded romps through “Notes on Proper Nouns,” observing, for or otherwise compromised over the Internet. In example, on the spelling of Mississippi: “Some people, Chapter 15, Ransomware, a situation where a third present company included, cannot ever spell it correctly party encrypts your computer and demands payment without singing the song” (p. 228). in bitcoin to unlock it, the author describes several The author’s idiosyncratic sense of humor real-world events. These examples really emphasize dominates most pages. It lets him down only when he how vulnerable you or other groups may be to online writes of something most people with a high school attacks. Topics discussed include elder scams, dating education have learned early on, as in the tepid chapter scams, phishing, and social media downfalls. on non-U.S. spellings and grammar. Fortunately, Augenbaum provides sound advice on how to avoid common online pitfalls. Throughout

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The Secret to Cybersecurity, he comes back to two Writing Successful Science Proposals main concepts: strong, unique passwords and two- Andrew J. Friedland, Carol L. Folt, and Jennifer L. Mercer. 2018. 3rd ed. factor authentication. One common problem is that New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [ISBN 978-0-300-22670-6. 264 pages, people re-use passwords across multiple accounts. So, including index. $22.00 (softcover).] if your website is compromised, that hacker may gain access to your email and other accounts, if the same Many topics discussed in the third password was used. Creating and keeping track of edition of Writing Successful Science multiple passwords is difficult, so Augenbaum presents Proposals are common to proposal recommendations on how to structure your passwords writing in general. But some are and where to store them. (Hint: It is not in a file in your “new.” And some bring a fresh Google drive.) Coupling strong passwords with two- perspective to those perennial topics; factor authentication is an excellent way to protect your especially the crucial concept of accounts. Two-factor authentication requires that you audience, that runs throughout the have your cell phone present to log into your email or book. The application forms are other online accounts. When you try and sign into your drawn chiefly from the NSF and NIH, NASA and the email account, a pop-up appears on your phone that EPA, that together make up the largest pool of science you must acknowledge to access your email. That way, funding. if your password is compromised, the hacker cannot Let’s focus on the topic of audience. Stressing the use the account unless they have also stolen your cell importance of titles, the authors point out that some phone. What Augenbaum does not do is give advice on evaluators may not be specialists in your field, so you configuring hardware to be more secure. For example, need a title they would understand. “Could a few word he does not tell you how to set up your wireless router changes in the title” make the proposal more accessible to use stronger security. to them (p. 67). The Project Summary, or Abstract, is ThroughoutThe Secret to Cybersecurity, you will be an important piece of a proposal. Agencies also expect presented with multiple scenarios that you can identify scientists to write a Summary that is understandable with and will terrify you. Almost every scenario listed to a scientifically literate lay audience. In addition, the could have been prevented if a strong password with Abstract is that document part that is the most likely two-factor authentication had been used, along with to find its way onto the Web, and so, we have another a good sense of what to click or not click on in the audience to consider. Internet. Will reading this book completely protect you The concept of audience also plays a major part from online attacks? Probably not. It should prepare in crafting the Research Plan. An important element you by strengthening your Internet knowledge and of the Research Plan is a subsection called Broader boosting your own online security procedures. This Impacts. This may include several audiences, such as (1) book is a resource that most people should read for outreach: engaging with people outside the scientific their own safety and that of others. research community; (2) education: students of any age; (3) synergies: collaborating with people from different Timothy Esposito fields; (4) public impact: benefits to society; and (5) Timothy Esposito is an STC Fellow with over 18 years of techni- public knowledge. cal communication experience. He is the past president of the Chapter 8, Introduction, is another major piece STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter. Before becoming president, that looms larger in a proposal than in many other Timothy was chapter vice president, treasurer, webmaster, and genres of writing. But even here, the authors urge the scholarship manager. reader to remember the non-specialist reviewer and suggest avoiding digressions and unnecessary details. Don’t drown the reader in references. And don’t make the Introduction too long. And, ah yes, visuals. The authors stress that “reviewers often prefer to examine a figure or table embedded in the text rather than to read two or three paragraphs of prose” (p. 126).

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Another fresh perspective is the concept of Team takes the focus from the leader and puts it on the group Science (Chapter 17): Much of scientific research today so that we can consider the leader’s role in facilitating is done in teams or as multidisciplinary research. The and growing the group’s personality. authors offer three terms commonly used to describe In the next chapter, Adair focuses on the role of the various types of multidisciplinary research; each of the leader which he argues is shaped common tasks which brings with it further considerations of audience. that are found in all work groups. He introduces a The first is “systems science”: bringing together new Three-Circle model for the generic role of leader: systems from different disciplines, such as biological achieving the task, building and maintaining the team, or ecological systems, social systems, or economic and developing the individual. “In order for the three systems––to examine pressing problems. Common overlapping areas of leadership responsibility to be met, technical terms in one field may be unfamiliar to certain functions need to be performed. A function is researchers in another field. The same problem what you do, as opposed to quality, which is what you arises with the other two: “convergence science” are or what you know” (p. 69). and “integrative science.” These types combine the Adair begins pulling the threads together in chapter knowledge and perspectives of different sciences for six with a definition of a leader: “A leader is the sort of solving research problems. You can imagine, in these person with the appropriate qualities and knowledge – three areas, the need for a whole new vocabulary for the which is more than technical or professional – who is researchers to collaborate successfully on their projects. able to provide the necessary functions to enable a team to achieve its task and to hold it together as a working Tetyana Darian unity. And this is done not by the leader alone but by Tetyana Darian is an STC member and is finishing her Master’s eliciting the contributions and willing cooperation of all in Mathematics at Rutgers University. She will soon start on involved” (p. 87). her doctoral studies in Computational and Integrative Biology. The rest of the book explores the qualities a leader Tetyana’s interests are in scientific computing, cybersecurity, and needs: enthusiasm, integrity, tough and demanding artificial intelligence. but fair, warmth and humanity, humility, the strategic leader, practical wisdom, and beliefs and hopes. All include wonderful information about the attributes a leader needs to imbue. Lessons in Leadership: The 12 Key Concepts I found this book to have great information but John Adair. 2018. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing. [ISBN 978-1-4729- 5693-4. 172 pages, including index. US$28.00 (softcover).] ultimately had trouble engaging with the material, which was explained with continued references to past military forces. Further, it wasn’t clear to me what the Adair’s book Lessons in Leadership: The 12 concepts were. The book built from models and 12 Key Concepts starts with a historical approaches explored in the first half of the book, but I account of leadership, specifically as it wasn’t clear on how they were counted as key concepts. relates to the armed forces. The first In conclusion, if you’re just being introduced to couple chapters are used to establish Adair’s work as I am, this might not be the book to start Adair as a trusted source on leadership with. Instead, you might want to explore his newest by discussing his academic work and book How to Lead Others: Eight Lessons for Beginners, previous books. which I can only assume would be more geared to an It isn’t until chapter four that audience not familiar with his work. you are introduced to Adair’s Three-Circles model which describes teams as having three overlapping areas Sara Buchanan of need: task, team, and individual. These concepts are Sara Buchanan is an STC member and a content strategist at continually at play in a team and determine the group’s LCS. She is also an avid reader and coffee drinker, spending “unique ethos” or “group personality.” According to much of her free time doing one or the other. Adair, “Work groups are more than the sum of their parts: They have a life and identity of their own” (p. 54). As he points out, the value of this model is that it

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Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process variables and algorithms to defining and describing Mark Baker. 2018. Laguna Hills, CA: XML Press. [ISBN 978-1-937434-56-4. various markdown languages. If all that sounds 490 pages, including index. US$39.95 (softcover).] daunting, don’t worry, the book contains many diagrams that help illustrate the abstract concepts Technical communication being described and textual examples that bring them professionals are continually to life. A notable example the great lengths the book pressured to create new content takes to make the examples digestible is its adoption of quickly, repurpose existing a simple markdown language called SAM to illustrate content for new media, translate the structure of content. SAM proved useful for content to new languages, and demonstrating concepts without forcing the reader to keep up with aggressive simultaneously learn or brush up on XML syntax. development timeframes—and While Structured Writing is not a tutorial on they’re expected to do all this implementing a structured authoring solution, a with fewer resources. Given these pressures, the case for content management platform, or a single sourcing embracing structured authoring has never been clearer. tool, it gives readers a comprehensive rundown on the However, many technical writers, editors, and managers theories and requisite understanding required to make quietly avoid eye contact when you mention XML, these technologies work well. This book represents DITA, or markdown. This needn’t be the case. the sort of confident knowledge that could only be Mark Baker’s Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process obtained through decades of content development and is a veritable bible on structured authoring, providing a delivery, and Structured Writing would be a suitable text thorough exploration of writing, content development, in a technical communication graduate course. markdown, and process. The book offers something for a variety of audiences. For the technical writer who Michael Opsteegh is apprehensive about structured authoring, this book Michael Opsteegh is an STC Senior Member and a technical explains how all writing is structured and adding a few writer in the software and financial services industries since more structured bits will make content more versatile. 2004. He is a lecturer in the technical communication program at For the manager who doesn’t understand what the Cal State Long Beach. Michael holds a master’s degree in English writers are fussing about, the book explains the writing and is a Certified Technical Professional Communicator (CPTC). process and the challenges that arise from partitioning complexity. For the lead who sees the team struggling under a mountain of unmanageable content, this book provides the language for articulating the need for Technical Blogging: Amplify Your Influence nd structured authoring processes, system design, and the Antonio Cangiano. 2019. 2 ed. Raleigh, NC: The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. [ISBN 978-1-68050-647-1. 278 pages. US$25.95 (Beta eBook).] benefits of structured writing to the organization. Because the audience is so broad, seasoned writers may find the first five chapters tedious, because they Few technical communicators describe basic aspects of content creation (albeit with have blog websites that reach insightful examples and illustrations), but they are the pinnacle of success and necessary for the author to lay the foundation for what profitability, which Cangiano structured authoring is and why it’s necessary. Having describes in Technical Blogging: said that, Baker takes great care in dividing the book Amplify Your Influence. Have we into manageable chunks to enable readers to dive into ever wondered why, or specific areas that interest them. There are 44 chapters considered how to better arranged into 8 sections. You could say that the book promote our technical blog and itself models structured authoring with manageable, expand its outreach/community? Wonder no more. focused topics and frequent headings. Cangiano not only advises what you should do, he then Structured Writing runs the gambit from describing instructs on concepts and tool sets you can use to make the nitty gritty distinctions between different types of it happen. Great information for a corporate blogger or newbie/paraprofessional bloggers, too.

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This second edition begins with the mental thought Donna Ford processes that should occur before building a blog site. Donna Ford has been an STC member, served on her local chap- Will the blog’s main content serve a general audience or ter’s board for many years, and holds a certificate in Information niche market? Is your writing more instructional or that Design from Bentley College. She has been a technical writer of a pundit? What are your company goals…how will in hardware, software, and government healthcare industries. you measure success? Donna also reviews books online for the US Review of Books. Cangiano then launches into detailed instructions on how to use WordPress to set up, format, acquire attention from search engines, and collect data from site visitors. WordPress was chosen because it ranks high Four Words for Friend: Why Using More Than One among those bloggers who might not want to invest Language Matters Now More Than Ever in high-end tool sets early on. WordPress can be easily Marek Kohn. 2019. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press [ISBN 978-0-300- 23108-3. 250 pages, including index. US$27.50.] customized with themes, menus, side bars, and social media icons. Yet it is professional enough to enter SEO Four metadata and even code. Inexpensive blog sites tend to When I first approached Kohn’s Words for Friend: Why Using More allow one or the other…not necessarily both. Than One Language Matters Now To rank in search engines, your blog should have More Than Ever a domain name and be registered before construction. , I had just embarked Technical communicators will quickly agree when upon my journey to learn French: Cangiano declares that Content is King. We may be the native tongue of my French- tempted to do all the writing ourselves. However, guest Canadian family. Like many bloggers or a paid content writer can add sparkle to a grandchildren of immigrants, the use site while we research the best links and tricks to raise of our ancestral language had slowly blog rankings. Of second importance is Consistency, petered out over the generations. I always had the which Cangiano declares to be Queen of the blog. sneaking suspicion that, because I did not know French, Random posts may attract a reader, but consistent I could not ever fully enjoy cultural membership to the high-quality content will bring them back, likely as Québécois community. According to Kohn, my consumers or fans who tell others. Cangiano suggests suspicion was probably correct. the best date for weekly postings and other strategies. In the text, Kohn makes a strong, well-supported High visitor volume may let you participate in case for the necessity of learning other languages. He affiliate marketing which can earn a substantial amount posits that languages are “the souls of nations” (p. 10). of money. If someone follows an ad from your site To understand even a fraction of a language offers the and goes on to purchase the affiliate’s product, you speaker insight into a culture in a way that non-speakers will receive a cash reward for the purchase. If you have can’t achieve. A more thorough grasp of the language managed to generate a large audience, look for affiliates allows the speaker to “enter a community, even if only who provide relevant services and products that you can as a guest” (p. 128). Four Words for Friend promote based on the demographics of your traffic and makes some salient your blog’s native language. points that offer a different view of the ways we Studying new techniques and applying latest trends approach translation and localization in technical to your company blog site could do much to attract communication. The first point concerns the use of new readership. Find images and videos online which italics to set apart words or phrases in another language. can be matched to keywords and tracked through SEO. While technical communicators are usually constrained Consider Technical Blogging as a savvy Web designer―an by the directions in their client’s style guide of choice, excellent addition to your blog’s game plan. Kohn advises against such a move: “They smack of othering, the practice of exclusion from in-groups by the use of labels or rhetorical artifice” (p. 11). Instead, he suggests that writers should refrain from setting artificial limits between languages within our writing, because the reader should feel that other languages are

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accessible to them. This sense of belonging for other Four Words for Friend is an essential text for languages enhances the reader’s understanding on more technical communicators working in international than the text’s surface level. technical writing and localization, as well as for Kohn also advises limiting the use of machine students hoping to go into this field. Language is more translation (MT), when practical. As technical than the sum of its parts or substituting the correct communicators working in localization know, MT word for another: it carries the worldview, thought cannot capture the tone or nuance of a language, processes, and even the history of a culture. In our which is integral to understanding the text’s meaning. global environment, we need to not just have access He likens the use of MT or machine interpreting to to a translation but to the culture and worldview of the use of a calculator. A calculator, or MT device, is other cultures, if we wish to localize our products and useful, but the person who can do sums or understand information effectively. a language with less reliance on the machine will always have a distinct advantage over those who cannot. The Nicole St. Germaine-Dilts take-away for technical writing is to reserve MT for Nicole St. Germaine is an Assistant Professor in the Technical straightforward texts that are less hindered by the lack and Business Writing Program at Angelo State University, as of nuance, and to continue to encourage students to well as a freelance writer and consultant. Her research interests learn another language. include technical communication for a Mexican-American audience and technical communication in the health fields.

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Save the Date 15–18 May 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue

15-18 May 2020 Seattl Eastsid BELLEVUE WASHINGTON Recent & Relevant Save the Date Lyn Gattis, Editor 15–18 May 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue The following articles on technical communication have appeared recently in other journals. The abstracts are prepared by volunteer journal monitors. If you would like to contribute, contact Lyn Gattis at LynGattis@Missouri- State.edu.

“Recent & Relevant” does not supply copies of cited articles. However, most publishers supply reprints, tear sheets, or copies at nominal cost. Lists of publishers’ addresses, covering nearly all the articles we have cited, appear in Ulrich’s international periodicals directory.

Collaboration Communication

Use and affordances of ICTs in Delivering feedback: Supervisors’ interorganizational collaboration: source credibility and An exploratory study of ICTs communication competence in nonprofit partnerships Kingsley Westerman, C., Reno, K., & Heuett, K. (2018). International Fu, J. S., Cooper, K. R., & Shumate, M. (2019). Management Journal of Business Communication, 55(4), 526–546. doi: Communication Quarterly, 33(2), 219–237. doi: 10.1177/0893318918824041 10.1177/2329488415613338

This study’s findings may be helpful to those who teach “This study investigated how perceptions of supervisor students more productive workplace communication communication competence and source credibility or to those who want to improve small organizations’ were affected by the valence and synchronicity of a collaborative communication. “Interorganizational feedback message and the channel used to deliver the collaboration relies on the use of information and feedback message. Results indicated that those receiving communication technologies (ICTs). However, feedback preferred phone calls rather than text messages previous ICT research often takes place within a single as a channel for managers to deliver feedback. Also, organization, lacking insight into how ICTs sustain supervisors delivering positive feedback were identified interorganizational structures. This study examined as more positive in general than those delivering negative both the product categories and functional uses of feedback. Further results and implications are discussed.” ICTs for interorganizational collaboration, drawing Katherine Wertz from surveys among a random sample of 181 human services nonprofit organizations in the United States. Results showed that email, teleconference, and shared Distant relations: The affordances of repositories (e.g., Dropbox) were most popular product email in interorganizational conflict types. Content analysis revealed that ICTs were used Bülow, A., Lee, J., & Panteli, N. (2019). International Journal of Business for coordination, information sharing, relational Communication, 56(3), 393–413. doi: 10.1177/2329488416633847 communication, and client management and ICT utilities varied based on collaboration types. Analyses “This article explores the role of email in the ambiguous also indicated that collaboration type, as opposed to circumstances of an established international organizational attributes (e.g., organizational capacity, partnership that is developing into competition. Using resources, size), was related to the frequency of ICT use the naturally occurring interaction of a longitudinal in nonprofit collaboration. Theoretical contributions ethnographic study, [the authors] study the ensuing task to the study of ICTs, interorganizational collaboration, and relationship conflicts through the communication and management communication are discussed.” medium. Results show that the conflict is facilitated by Diana Fox Bentele email, not as an unfortunate side-effect but as a strategic

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choice of distance, partly for passive protection but and comparing these various other terms. Next, they also for active control of the interaction. [The authors] summarize past research, offer revised versions of five use the results to chart the multiple situated identities propositions concerning multicommunicating, and of the communicators that are made salient in their identify a new concept, multicommunicator aspirational virtual interaction. The double aspect of social and stress. Finally, they offer suggestions for both pedagogy organizational contexts is shown to have an effect on and future research on multicommunicating.” different issues, such as organizational authority at the Sean C. Herring home organization, the buyer-supplier relationship, nonnative language use, and norms of communication style in the interaction.” Katherine Wertz Design

Just paying attention: Communication Lower case in the flatlands: New for organizational attention Typography and orthographic reform Gómez, L. (2018). International Journal of Business Communication, in a Danish printing calendar 55(4), 466–482. doi: 10.1177/2329488415600862 Klevgaard, T. (2019). Visible Language, 53(1), 111–131. [doi: none]

“The main premises in this article are that organizational The article recounts European controversies almost a attention is inherently communicative, and can be century old, yet the controversy is meaningful today for nurtured through communication interventions. Two those who are interested in any barriers to education communication practices that reflect organizational that disadvantaged students face. It is an interesting attention—information allocation and dialogue—can read for those who wish to debate standardized font be nurtured through organizational structures and choices. “The orthographic reform program known interventions. Increasing opportunities for dialogue as kleinschreibung, or writing small, was an integral across organizational functions is critical to improve part of the New Typography of the 1920s and 30s. collective attention. Prior research and empirical data are Commonly associated with institutions like the presented to assert that a long-term orientation is also Bauhaus, or groups like the ring ‘neue werbegestalter’ imperative to develop attention through communication (circle ‘new advertising designers’), New Typography practices such as information allocation and dialogue.” was also taken up in the work of numerous printers Katherine Wertz and compositors across Germany and beyond. In Denmark, where common nouns were capitalized then as they still are in German, one proponent of Multicommunicator aspirational stress, New Typography amongst printers was Typografernes suggestions for teaching and research, fagtekniske Samvirke (The Compositors’ trade- and other insights after 10 years of technical Cooperative). In 1934 this educational multicommunication research society published an annual titled Typografisk årbog Reinsch, N. L., & Turner, J. W. (2019). Journal of Business and Technical 1935 (Typographic yearbook 1935) where it set out Communication, 33(2), 141–171. doi: 10.1177/1050651918816356 how it had chosen to engage with New Typography and kleinschreibung by adapting them to Danish “This study offers a comprehensive review of data- circumstances. This article takes Typografisk årbog based research on the practice of multicommunicating, 1935 as the starting point for an investigation of that is, the behavior of participating in multiple, the similarities and differences between the German overlapping conversations. Initial research has occurred and Danish contexts by tracing their histories of in various academic disciplines and described the orthographic reform and by linking these to New phenomenon with a variety of terms. The authors begin Typography as practiced in the two countries.” by defining multicommunication and then identifying Diana Fox Bentele

20 Technical Communication l Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 Recent & Relevant

Education appropriate mobile phone usage during business meetings. After comparing the 476 student responses from [this study’s] survey with a previous study, [the authors] More than a feeling: Applying a data- found that student and professional perceptions aligned driven framework in the technical and frequently; however, gender, age, and year in school professional communication team project influence student perceptions. The article concludes with Lam, C. (2018). IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 61(4), suggestions for teaching and future research.” 409–427. doi: 10.1109/TPC.2018.2870683 Diana Fox Bentele

“[S]tudent group projects come with some unique challenges, such as unequal distribution of work, unequal levels of learning, and perceptions of fairness.…This Ethics teaching case describes the implementation and outcomes of a data-driven framework for decision making called collect, analyze, triangulate, and act (CATA) that the Seeking formula for misinformation author developed. After they learned about the CATA treatment in public health framework, the students completed a series of data-driven crises: The effects of corrective exercises during the team formation, team functioning, information type and source and team evaluation stages of the team project. van der Meer, T. G. L. A., & Jin, Y. (2019). Health Communication Perceptions of CATA’s effectiveness were collected after (online). doi: 10.1080/10410236.2019.1573295 the project ended.…Survey results indicated that students found the CATA framework helpful in many team “An increasing lack of information truthfulness has contexts. Students expressed particularly strong opinions become a fundamental challenge to communications. about how CATA aided in the fairness and accuracy of Insights into how to debunk this type of misinformation peer evaluations, was helpful for self-reflection, and was can especially be crucial for public health crises. To useful for making informed arguments to convince team identify corrective information strategies that increase members of a decision” although its capacity for managing awareness and trigger actions during infectious conflict was limited. “Students realized many benefits disease outbreaks, an online experiment (N = 700) from the CATA framework, and some team leaders even was conducted, using a U.S. sample. After initial felt empowered in certain instances by appealing to data. misinformation exposure, participants’ exposure to However, instructors should still consider scaffolding corrective information type (simple rebuttal vs. factual data literacy and teamwork skills for students to be fully elaboration) and source (government health agency prepared for successful teamwork.” vs. news media vs. social peer) was varied, including a Lyn Gattis control group without corrective information. Results show that, if corrective information is present rather than absent, incorrect beliefs based on misinformation Not so different? Student and are debunked and the exposure to factual elaboration, professional perceptions of mobile compared to simple rebuttal, stimulates intentions to phone etiquette in meetings take protective actions. Moreover, government agency Towner, E. B., Everett, H. L., & Klemz, B. R. (2019). Business and news media sources are found to be more successful and Professional Communication Quarterly. [OnlineFirst] doi: in improving belief accuracy compared to social peers. 10.1177/2329490619836452 The observed mediating role of crisis emotions reveals the mechanism underlying the effects of corrective “Previous studies have noted the difficulties students have information. The findings contribute to misinformation in understanding and adapting to professional workforce research by providing a formula for correcting the policies, especially mobile device usage and e-etiquette. increasing spread of misinformation in times of crisis.” This study focuses on determining how closely students Walter Orr and working professionals align in their perceptions of

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Trust-building in a patient forum: information credibility.…The findings cannot be The interplay of professional generalized beyond this online forum, to Finnish and personal expertise girls or young women, or even the users of the online Bakke, A. (2019). Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, forum. However, they provide insights into the ways 49(2), 156–182. doi: 10.1177/0047281618776222 young people evaluate user-generated information in a particular online setting and domain of knowledge and “Online discussion forums for patients offer the benefits as such contribute to research on cognitive authority, of community but the risks of misinformation. A credibility evaluation and information literacy.” physician-moderated forum may help to mitigate this Yvonne Wade Sanchez tension. How do both the professional expertise of a physician moderator and the personal, experiential expertise of patients contribute to trust in a forum? A In the service of good writing: rhetorical analysis of a year of postings in an online In a relationship? Parkinson’s community reveals that both forms of Thomas, L. E. (2019). American Medical Writers Association Journal, expertise were trusted, demonstrating the possibility for 34(1), 38–39. [doi: none] them to complement each other. This study illustrates the broader ways trust is established in patient In this article, the author urges writers and communities and offers implications for technical communicators to think carefully about using words communicators as forum designers or moderators.” that imply relationships when writing about those Anita Ford participating in the medical and healthcare industries. The term “patient” implies a direct clinical relationship, while “client” can refer to someone who is more generally seeking professional advice or services, such Health communication as social services. Patients who engage in research or clinical trials can also be referred to as “subjects,” “participants,” or “volunteers.” Subjects act as a more The cognitive authority of user- passive data source for research, participants actively generated health information in an online cooperate with study protocols, and volunteers seek forum for girls and young women out research opportunities. Those who utilize health Hirvonen, N., Tirroniemi, A., & Kortelainen, T. (2019). Journal of services can also be consumers or customers. In Documentation, 75(1), 78–98. doi: 10.1108/JD-05-2018-0083 pediatrics, “caregivers” is a more inclusive term than “mothers” or “parents.” Within healthcare, people can This paper examines a Finnish online discussion forum take on multiple, specific, and multidimensional roles as a “potentially authoritative health information depending on the context. Communicators must strive source” for girls and young women. “The concept for accuracy when describing these roles. of cognitive authority is used as a starting point for Walter Orr understanding information evaluation in this context. The focus is placed on the types of information users seek for from this forum, the ways they assess the Investigating the association between credibility of information obtained, and their views internet health information use and on the impact of this information.…The forum was patient willingness to communicate found to offer girls and young women the possibility with health care providers to receive health information from peers. It was viewed Baker, S. C., & Watson, B. M. (2019). Health Communication (online). as an appropriate source for experiential rather than doi: 10.1080/10410236.2019.1584778 factual health information and used to find information on sexuality, bodily functions and diets, for example. “Communication between health professionals and Author-related cues, argumentation and tone, veracity patients is an intergroup phenomenon where the health and verification were recognized as means to evaluate

22 Technical Communication l Volume 66, Number 3, August 2019 Recent & Relevant

professional has the most power and status. Over the are often embedded in negative public attitudes past few decades, there has been a steady increase in the around these issues and can be important to stigma’s availability to patients of information about healthcare development and reduction. Research suggests that and specific diseases on the Internet. In this paper, narrative messages may hold promise for influencing [the authors] ask whether the use of Internet health attributions and stigma in these health contexts. information assists patients to manage their consultations Using a national sample of American adults from an with health professionals better and whether it alters online panel (N = 5,007), [the authors] conducted a the intergroup dynamic by providing a more equal survey-embedded randomized experiment, assigning status for patients. In this study 370 participants from participants to read one of six messages about one of Australia and Canada completed a survey that included three health issues. All participants read a statement a ‘willingness to communicate with health professionals’ detailing the magnitude of their assigned health scale. They also commented on their use and trust of problem, after which some respondents received a short Internet health information. Thematic analysis suggests inoculation message (serving as a comparison group) that patients’ use of Internet health information serves or a narrative message emphasizing external factors as a broker between patients and their health provider while acknowledging personal responsibility for the in health consultations. [The authors] discuss the issue. Some participants also read a counter message implications of these findings for health practitioners as emphasizing personal responsibility for the health they address how easier Internet access influences patient issue to replicate competitive messaging environments interactions with health professionals.” surrounding these issues. Relative to those who received Walter Orr only the magnitude of problem message (comparison group 1) or the magnitude of problem and inoculation messages (comparison group 2), the narrative message Preparing for the future of reduced prescription opioid addiction stigma and medical writing in biopharma increased attributions of responsibility to groups beyond the individual. Narrative effects were mixed for obesity, Affleck, J., Kryder, C. L., Speigel, K., & Winter-Vann, A. (2019). American Medical Writers Association Journal, 34(1), 44–46. [doi: none] had no effect on attributions or stigma around cigarette smoking, and were generally consistent whether or At the annual American Medical Writers Association not respondents received a counter message. Narrative meeting, executives of medical writing departments messages may be a promising approach for shifting convened to discuss current challenges and workplace responsibility attributions and reducing public stigma trends affecting medical writers. Automation and remote around prescription opioid addiction, and may have work/outsourcing emerged as current trends. Current some relevance for obesity stigma-reduction efforts.” challenges included recruitment and retention in Walter Orr addition to the development of soft skills and emotional intelligence. These trends and challenges must be creatively addressed in the near future by managerial staff Restorative narratives for and organizations employing medical writing teams. health promotion Walter Orr Fitzgerald, K., Paravati, E., Green, M. C., Moore, M. M., & Qian, J. L. (2019). Health Communication (online). doi: 10.1080/10410236.2018.1563032 Reducing health-related stigma “Stories may provide a useful way of communicating through narrative messages about health and promoting engagement for health Heley, K., Kennedy-Hendricks, A., Niederdeppe, J., & Barry, C. L. (2019). promotion campaigns. In this study, [the authors] Health Communication (online). doi: 10.1080/10410236.2019.1598614 examined the effectiveness of a particular type of narrative, restorative narratives (stories that highlight “Public stigma characterizes three leading health issues: hope and resilience), relative to negative narratives prescription opioid addiction, obesity, and cigarette (stories that focus on suffering or challenges). [The smoking. Attributions of individual responsibility

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authors] also tested the effect of labeling the story as fact Intercultural issues or fiction. The results suggested that restorative narratives may foster greater prosocial behavior than negative narratives and effectiveness does not differ depending on Cultural dialectics in international whether a story is labeled as ‘factual’ or ‘fictional.’ [The teamwork dynamics authors’] findings offer encouraging implications for Levitt, S. (2019). International Journal of Business Communication, future promotional efforts by health organizations.” 56(3), 326–348. doi: 10.1177/2329488416629094 Walter Orr “Some people see multinational collaboration as a problem, while others see it as an opportunity. Intercultural teamwork involves a dynamic push-pull Information management tension between diversity and unity which places its study solidly within a dialectic perspective. In-depth interviews were conducted with 27 individuals who Thriving in an environment of change held management or supervisory positions, worked Bhatia, N. (2019). Best Practices, 21(1), 6–10. [Center for Information- on multinational teams, and spent time working Development Management] [doi: none] abroad. Their companies represent a broad range of industries and collectively these individuals worked This article describes one software company’s shift from on teams in several dozen countries in Asia, Europe, “monolithic codebases into smaller, independent modules the Middle East, Africa, North and South America, called services (or microservices), which are made available as well as Australia and New Zealand. The results to customers via the cloud” and the accompanying revealed a variety of cultural paradoxes and dialectics, changes in the company’s documentation sets. To respond complexities, and differences which affect many aspects effectively to the now-frequent product updates, the of collaborative work. The importance of cultural company’s rapid growth, and customers’ expectations identity and relationship recur throughout participant for timely, context-specific answers to questions, the narratives. Dialectics include self-other validation, company “had to change the authoring and publishing autonomy-connection, national-organizational culture, infrastructure, [the] toolset, processes, and deliverables— work-life, ambiguity-certainty, efficiency-redundancy, almost everything associated with the content and direct-indirect communication styles. Intersections development lifecycle.” Along with describing each step among dialectics are also identified.” of the change process, from getting stakeholder buy-in Katherine Wertz to vendor selection to execution, the author includes practical suggestions for organizations considering a similar shift in their management and delivery of content. Judging expertise through communication Lyn Gattis styles in intercultural collaboration Yuan, Y. C., Liao, W., & Bazarova, N. N. (2019). Management Communication Quarterly, 33(2), 238–271. doi: 10.1177/0893318918824674

This article holds specific information for improving intercultural communication in the workplace, especially between Asian and non-Asian individuals. “Recent research on expertise management calls for more attention to the role of communication in expertise recognition. Cultural differences in communication styles can complicate communication of expertise and consequently make expertise recognition more difficult in mixed-culture groups than in same-culture groups.

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This article reports results from a two-phase study Management (348 Chinese and non-Asian U.S. citizen [NAUSC] students in the first phase, and 24 four-person groups that consist of both NAUSC and Chinese students in Emails from the boss—curse the second phase) on the role of communication styles or blessing? Relations between in intercultural collaboration. The results suggest that communication channels, leader for both Chinese and NAUSC students, conversational evaluation, and employees’ attitudes control, tenseness, task-oriented communication, and Braun, S., Bark, A., Kirchner, A., Stegmann, S., & van Dick, R. (2019). confidence are important cues influencing expertise International Journal of Business Communication, 56(1), 50–81. doi: judgment, but perceived expertise and actual expertise 10.1177/2329488415597516 may be unrelated to each other.” Diana Fox Bentele “The present research investigates if and how a more digitally centered communication between supervisors and employees satisfies employees’ needs regarding the communication with their supervisors and influences Language employees’ attitudes toward the supervisor and the job. In a cross-sectional online study, 261 employees rated their supervisors’ actual and ideal use of different National cultures on European communication channels (i.e., telephone, face-to-face, corporate homepages in English: email) regarding quality and quantity. Employees’ job A linguistic analysis satisfaction and their perceptions of their supervisors’ Cucchi, C. (2019). International Journal of Business Communication, effectiveness and team identification were measured as 56(2), 198–232. doi: 10.1177/2329488415604456 dependent variables. Employees perceived face-to-face communication to be of higher quality than telephone “The aim of the study is to discover linguistic features and email communication, and they indicated a that may be related to national differences on European preference for more face-to-face communication with corporate websites where English is used as a lingua their supervisors than they actually had. Moreover, franca. The methodology used is qualitative and the perceived quality of communication, especially corporate homepages are taken as units of analysis. via face-to-face, was strongly and positively related to European cheese companies are chosen due to the the dependent variables. These results provide insights links between food and national identity and to the into potential problems of increasing e-leadership importance of the cheese sector in Europe. Four in organizations. [The authors] conclude with European countries—Austria, Denmark, Poland, and recommendations to reduce these problems.” Portugal—are selected in order to represent different Katherine Wertz national cultures within three different geographic areas, namely Northern, Central, and Southern Europe. Findings reveal, first, significant differences in the kind An examination of leader-member dyadic of information provided and in the linguistic features politeness of exchange and servant used and, second, that a number of differences can leadership on group member performance be explained with reference to Hall’s and Hofstede’s Bakar, H., & McCann, R. (2018). International Journal of Business cultural models. The study shows that linguistic Communication, 55(4), 501–525. doi: 10.1177/2329488415597517 research can contribute considerably to marketing studies, by identifying linguistic markers that could be “Integrating conversational constraint theory associated with cultural dimensions and by illustrating and models of homophily and relational dyadic how they interact in actual website texts.” communication, this study investigates how leader- Katherine Wertz member politeness exchange and servant leadership influence group member performance in a Malaysian organizational context. Using hierarchical linear

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modeling with data obtained from a sample of 510 Humor style clusters: Exploring employees, 65 workgroups, and 3 organizations, managerial humor a politeness of exchange-servant leadership model Evans, T., & Steptoe-Warren, G. (2018). International Journal of Business was tested. Results show that servant leadership was Communication, 55(4), 443–454. doi: 10.1177/2329488415612478 positively and significantly associated with workgroup manager’s ratings of group member’s performance. “The current study is the first to explore the relationships The positive association between servant leadership between managerial humor and workplace facets using and group member performance is more pronounced cluster analysis. Two-hundred and two employed when managers and members in workgroups are high adults rated their managers’ humor and workplace in politeness of exchange in their interactions. As facets online. K-means cluster analyses identified three predicted, leader-member dyadic politeness of exchange managerial humor clusters, mostly replicating those within the workgroup manager-group member dyads found in the existing literature. A significant pattern moderated this positive association.” of differences in stress, communication, creativity, Katherine Wertz perceptions of leader power, and job satisfaction were found between the clusters. Findings suggest negative humor use is most likely to be damaging to Full- and part-time dissent: organizations when not used alongside positive humor Examining the effect of employment types, and it is not merely the frequency with which a manager uses an individual humor type, but the status on dissent expression holistic view of their humor, which is of importance in Kassing, J., Fanelli, S., & Chakravarthy, L. (2018). International Journal of Business Communication, 55(4), 455–465. doi: gauging valence of organizational facets. Using cluster 10.1177/2329488415597518 analysis was beneficial in challenging assumptions from the existing literature, further contextualizing our “This study examined whether employment status understanding of humor and reinforcing the importance affected the amount and type of dissent employees of humor use in the workplace.” expressed to management. To address this full- Katherine Wertz time and part-time employees in separate data collections completed the Upward Dissent Scale. A comparison of participant scores indicated that full- time employees used comparatively more prosocial Professional issues (direct-factual appeals and solution presentation) and repetition upward dissent tactics compared to part- time employees. Contrastingly, part-time employees Evolving skill sets and job pathways relied more heavily on upward dissent expressions that of technical communicators involved circumventing their bosses and threatening to Shalamova, N., Rice-Bailey, T., & Wikoff, K. (2019). Communication quit their jobs. The findings indicate that employment Design Quarterly Review, 6(3), 14–24. doi: 10.1145/3309578.3309580 status has a notable effect on the expression of upward dissent—with full- and part-time employees “Recent research in technical communication (TC) relying on differing tactics.” indicates that the field has become more varied than Katherine Wertz ever in terms of job titles, job skills, and levels of involvement in the design and production process. Here, [the authors] examine this diversity by detailing the results of a small-scale anonymous survey of individuals who are currently working as technical communicators (TCs). The purpose of [the] survey was to discover what job titles people who identify as TCs have held and the skills required of those positions. The study was conducted using the online survey platform

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Qualtrics. Survey results found that TCs occupy Data-driven approaches to research jobs and use skills that are often quite different from and teaching in professional ‘traditional’ TC careers. Results further support previous and technical communication research that these roles and responsibilities continue to [introduction to special issue] evolve. However, results also suggest that this evolution Boettger, R. K., & Ishizaki, S. (eds). (2018). IEEE Transactions is more sweeping than previously realized—moving TCs on Professional Communication, 61(4), 352–355. doi: 10.1109/ away from not only the traditional technical writing TPC.2018.2870547 role but also the ‘technical communicator’ role as it has been understood for the past 20-25 years.” “The increasing availability ofbig data coupled with Yvonne Wade Sanchez computational analysis has given TPC researchers and instructors new approaches. However, communication—whether it is written, oral, visual, or multimodal—is a complex cultural process, and it is highly dependent on context.…Whether we are Research teaching technical communication students who will be communicating the results of data-driven studies or training doctoral students who will be conducting Computer-mediated communication data-driven research projects, it is not enough to to facilitate synchronous online focus simply introduce data-driven methods and tools.… group discussions: Feasibility study for Introduction of computational approaches must qualitative HIV research among transgender be complemented by the traditional humanistic women across the United States approach to analyzing data.” To this end, the editors Wirtz, A. L., Cooney, E. E., Chaudhry, A., & Reisner, S. L. (2019). Journal of this special issue asked contributors “to engage in of Medical Internet Research, 21(3), e12569. doi: 10.2196/12569 a wide range of methodological questions” and to offer perspectives on how data-driven approaches are “Novel, technology-based methods are rapidly affecting or enhancing our teaching, research, and increasing in popularity across multiple facets of understanding of the field. quantitative research. Qualitative research, however, Lyn Gattis has been slower to integrate technology into research methodology. One method, computer- mediated communication (CMC), has been utilized DrawingOut—An innovative drawing to a limited extent for focus group discussions.… workshop method to support the This study aimed to assess feasibility of an online generation and dissemination video conferencing system to further adapt CMC to facilitate [seven] synchronous focus group discussions of research findings among [41] transgender women living in six cities in Gameiro, S., de Guevara, B. B., El Refaie, E., & Payson, A. (2018). PLOS eastern and southern United States” for the purpose ONE, 13 (9), e0203197. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203197 of informing “a technology-enhanced cohort study to assess HIV acquisition among transgender women.… “A growing body of literature has explored the potential CMC focus group discussions were found to facilitate for arts-based methods to generate and disseminate geographic diversity; allow participants to control research, particularly on sensitive or complex topics. anonymity and privacy (e.g., use of pseudonyms and This article presents DrawingOut, a metaphor-centred option to use video); ease scheduling by eliminating drawing workshop designed to collect visual and textual challenges related to travel to a data collection site; and data about individuals’ experiences of sensitive or taboo offer flexibility to join via a variety of devices.…This health experiences.…[The authors] piloted DrawingOut method may provide an optimal alternative to engaging in a study of nine women with a minority ethnic or hard-to-reach participants in focus group discussions.” religious background in Cardiff, UK. The women were invited to participate in a series of structured drawing Yvonne Wade Sanchez activities. The conversations occurring during the

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workshop were recorded and then subjected to thematic Introducing Fireant: A freeware, analysis.…This pilot study supports the view that multiplatform social media healthcare actors can use the DrawingOut method to data-analysis tool engage people to talk about sensitive health topics, while Anthony, L. (2019). IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, simultaneously providing them with an enjoyable and 61(4), 428–442. doi: 10.1109/TPC.2018.2870681 empowering research experience.” Yvonne Wade Sanchez “This paper introduces a new social media data- analysis tool called FireAnt that allows technical and professional communication researchers, instructors, Durable, portable research through and students to easily collect, analyze, and visualize partnerships with interdisciplinary social media communication.…Currently, most social advocacy groups, specific research media analysis is carried out using custom computer scripts written in programming languages such as topics, and larger data sets Python and R. Although these custom scripts can Molloy, C. (2019). Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 165–176. doi: 10.1080/10572252.2019.1588375 be very powerful, they create an enormous barrier to those without a strong computational background “Relying on the case of a mixed-methods study or the resources to hire a software engineer or centered on patients’ strategies for establishing their data scientist.…FireAnt is a freeware, stand-alone, credibility in clinical conversations, this essay argues multiplatform social media data-analysis tool that the more intentional and effective the participant designed for both novice and expert computer users. recruitment and the more specific the inquiry, the more It can be used to collect, analyze, and subsequently likely technical communication and rhetoric of science visualize social media data as time-series plots, researchers are to encounter potentially powerful geopositional maps, and network graphs. It can also partners through which they might get and analyze export results for further processing using traditional compelling data and, thus, gain engaged audiences corpus tools, statistical packages, and custom scripts.” outside of their disciplines.” This tutorial demonstrates “how FireAnt can be used to collect social media data related to specific Rhonda Stanton companies, analyze those data, and visualize the data in a variety of ways.” Durable research, portable findings: Lyn Gattis Rhetorical methods in case study research Moriarty, D., Nunez De Villavicencio, P., Black, L., Bustos, Q-Rhetoric and controlled M., Cai, H., Mehlenbacher, B., & Mehlenbacher, A. R. (2019). Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 124–136. doi: equivocation: Revising “The Scientific 10.1080/10572252.2019.1588376 Study of Subjectivity” for cross- disciplinary collaboration “Case studies have been a central methodology employed Gottschalk Druschke, C., Booth, E., & Lundberg, E. (2019). by scholars working in the rhetoric of science and Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 137–151. doi: technical communication. However, concerns have been 10.1080/10572252.2019.1583377 raised about how cases are constructed and collected, and what they convey. The authors reflect on how “This article offers a revision to an existing social rhetoricians of science and technical communication science methodology, Q methodology, through researchers can—and do—construct a variety of case- ‘Q-Rhetoric.’ After detailing Q methodology’s based mixed-methods studies in ways that may make our theoretical underpinnings and practical method, and research more portable and durable without undercutting persistent critiques of the methodology, the article the important and central role of case-based analysis.” employs perspectives from rhetorical theory and Amerindian anthropology to suggest a methodological Rhonda Stanton correction. It concludes by detailing the use of

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Q-Rhetoric to intervene in a Wisconsin stream difficulties encountered, how older adults cope with ICT management controversy, proposing Q-Rhetoric as a failure, and the various forms of social support that may pragmatic and theoretically sound methodology for result as a consequence of accessing technical support. working across disciplinary divides.” [The authors] use data from nine semistructured focus Rhonda Stanton groups conducted with older adults in the Midwest region of the United States. Results show that older adults may adapt new strategies for coping with the technical difficulties that arise from regular ICT use. Science communication Furthermore, as older adults incorporate ICTs into their daily lives and seek assistance from social ties and experts, they may also be indirectly combating the threat Building better bridges: Toward a of isolation and loneliness.” transdisciplinary science communication Yvonne Wade Sanchez Johnson, J., & Xenos, M. (2019). Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 112–123. doi: 10.1080/10572252.2019.1583378 Information and communication “In this article the authors envision a more durable and technology roles in agricultural value portable model of scholarship on public engagement chain promotion among peri-urban with science through partnerships between rhetoricians women farmers in Imo State, Nigeria of science and quantitative social scientists. The authors Atoma, C. N., Onoh, P. A., & Emerhirhi, A. E. (2018). Library Philosophy consider a number of barriers and limitations that and Practice (e-journal), 2061. [doi: none] make such partnerships difficult, with an eye toward discovering ways that researchers may overcome them. “Farmers do not make/maximize profits when they stop The authors conclude by articulating guidelines for at the production level only. To make more profits, they reciprocal transdisciplinary work as well as specific need to add value to their products. This paper examines recommended practices for such collaborations.” the roles of ICTs in promoting agricultural value chain Rhonda Stanton among women farmers who reside in the urban fringes of Imo State. The specific objectives were to identify value chain information needs of women farmers, ascertain ICT devices used by the women farmers, and determine Technology perceived roles of ICTs in promoting agricultural value chain. A total of 250 women farmers were randomly selected and interviewed using questionnaire Catalyst to connection: When complemented with oral discussion.” Respondents technical difficulties lead to social reported needing agricultural value chain information support for older adults on production and storage (98%), marketing/business Francis, J., Kadylak, T., Makki, T. W., Rikard, R. V., & Cotten, S. R. development (100%), financial services (98.8%), (2018). American Behavioral Scientist, 62(9), 1167–1185. doi: processing/packaging (88%), and distribution (93.6%). 10.1177/0002764218773829 Information devices used by the farmers included radio, mobile phones, television, periodicals, and extension “Information and communication technology (ICT) use agents. “ICT device/sources provide information on time can mitigate the negative impact of various age-related of planting, availability of seeds/input, reducing time of threats, such as isolation and loneliness, by facilitating business transactions, financial services provision and connection with social ties and access to social support. market prices among roles.” Although research regarding various uses and benefits of Yvonne Wade Sanchez ICTs among older adults has increased, there is limited research regarding the impact of technical difficulties on older adults’ well-being. [This] study explores technical

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Usability Writing

Disconnecting to connect: Developing Linguistic markers of stand and genre postconnectivist tactics for mobile and in upper-level student writing networked technical communication Aull, L. (2019). Written Communication, 36(2), 267–295. doi: Verhulsdonck, G., Melton, J., & Shah, V. (2019). 10.1177/0741088318819472 Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 152–164. doi: 10.1080/10572252.2019.1588377 This article points out specific similarities and differences between argumentative versus expository “In a networked society, humans are connected genres of college-student writing that are helpful through mobile devices to always-on networks, and for writing instructors to keep in mind. “Stance is a these technologies merge with us in new ways. In this growing focus of academic writing research and an environment, studying human-networked interactions important aspect of writing development in higher involves an expanded type of usability. In this article, education. Research on student writing to date has [the authors] argue that a key component of usability explored stance across different levels, language is how humans connect and disconnect from these backgrounds, and disciplines, but has rarely focused networks. For this reason, the authors advocate studying on stance features across genres. This article explores how users connect and disconnect between online and stance marker use between two important genre offline contexts in their everyday life. Such an effort families in higher education—persuasive argumentative involves questioning our assumptions about the role of writing and analytic explanatory writing—based on connection in usability and introduces methodological corpus linguistic analysis of late undergraduate and issues in studying these processes. These shifts require early graduate-level writing in the Michigan Corpus of our research to be more multidisciplinary and more Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The specific methodologically demanding, with major implications stance markers in the study, both epistemic and textual for the portability and durability of technical cues, have been shown to distinguish student writing communication research.” across levels; this study, then, extends the analysis to Rhonda Stanton consider the comparative use of these markers across genres. The findings show two stance expectations persistent across genres as well as significant distinctions between argumentative and explanatory writing vis- à-vis stance markers that intensify and contrast. The findings thus point to important considerations for instruction, assignment design, and future research.” Diana Fox Bentele

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