Technical Communication Quarterly Jun 1992

Challengerand the social contingency of meaning: Two lessons for the technical communication classroom

Paul M. Dombrowski Ohio University

Abstract

In my technical writing class, I examine two “meanings” from the Challenger disaster to illustrate the social contingency of meaning even in science and technology. These instances are the “anomalous” charring of the O‐rings and the reconceptualized assumption of flightworthiness the night before the launch. The social contingency of these meanings shows that the “object” of technical communication is not the material object as a pre‐existent isolate but in its social interpretation, significance, and meaning. Ultimately, technical communication is about people communicating about and to the interests of other people.

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
1992-06-01
DOI
10.1080/10572259209359507
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Closed
Topics
writing pedagogy technical communication
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (22)

  1. Pflugfelder (2018)
    Failure Matters: Conflicting Practices in a High-Tech Case
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  5. Dombrowski (2011)
    Practicing “Safe” Technical Communication
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  1. Ward (2010)
    The Ethic of Exigence: Information Design, Postmodern Ethics, and the Holocaust
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  2. Dombrowski (2006)
    The Two Shuttle Accident Reports: Context and Culture in Technical Communication
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  3. Dombrowski (2006)
    The Two Shuttle Accident Reports: Context and Culture in Technical Communication
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  4. Dombrowski (2002)
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  5. Dombrowski (2002)
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  6. Dombrowski (2001)
    Plastic Language for Plastic Science: The Rhetoric of Comrade Lysenko
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  7. Smith (2000)
    Strength in the Technical Communication Journals and Diversity in the Serials Cited
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  8. Dombrowski (2000)
    Ethics and Technical Communication: The Past Quarter Century
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  9. SMITH (1997)
    Intertextual Connections to “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing”
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  10. Gross et al. (1997)
    The Challenger Disaster And The Revival Of Rhetoric In Organizational Life
    Argumentation
  11. THOMPSON (1996)
    Competence and Critique in Technical Communication: A Qualitative Content Analy…
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  12. Dombrowski (1995)
    Post‐modernism as the resurgence of humanism in technical communication studies
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  13. Johnson-Eilola (1995)
    Accumulation, circulation, association: economies of information in online spaces
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  14. Dombrowski (1995)
    Can ethics be technologized? Lessons from Challenger, philosophy, and rhetoric
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  15. Henry (1994)
    Toward Technical Authorship
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  16. Kynell (1994)
    Considering our Pedagogical past through Textbooks: A Conversation with John M.…
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  17. Dombrowski (1994)
    Challengerthrough the Eyes of Feyerabend
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CrossRef global citation count: 23 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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