For this week’s meta-comment I’ve taken a look at which threads were popular and which topics within those threads were most discussed. Overall I thought the discussion of the text was good and that there was a good follow up of questions and debate in the forum posts. The first thread I viewed used Grabill and Simmons’ article on risk communication and the second thread used Killingsworth and Jones’ article on methods of communication management.
In the readings for the week, the class held a primary concern with notions of contracting and expansive communication, spanning the articles of Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber; M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Betsy G. Jones, and Grabill and Simmons. Students partook in extensive discourse with regards to how communication (or the lack thereof) contributes or subtracts from the modern workforce in its various manifestations.
This week’s readings discussed the differences in how corporations and large-scale organizations like government handle business in regards to communication. The dominant launch this week was Karley Hicks’, but everyone’s posts had something significant and worthwhile.
It took me awhile to understand exactly what the authors meant by risk communication. In fact, I went to Wikipedia to look up risk management. It’s a job which attempts to develop ways to avoid, manage and transfer risks of all types. These risks can be financial or include natural disasters. I honestly had never considered a technical writer to have a major impact on this career and hits affect on the public. Reading through Wikipedia gave me a much better understanding of the issues the authors put in the article.
The article “Toward a Critical Rhetoric of Risk Communication: Producing Citizens and the Role of Technical Communicators” by Jeffery T Grabill and W. Michelle Simmons focused mostly on the importance of the audience and the influence it has on whatever you are making.
They wrote, “In particular, it is the technical communicator who can insert the audience/public/citizens directly into the risk assessment process through usability testing” (374). I thought the example they gave really explained that quote well.