Cruel Theory? The Struggle for Prestige and its Consequences in Academic Technical Communication

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jul 2008

Cruel Theory? The Struggle for Prestige and its Consequences in Academic Technical Communication

Patrick Moore University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Abstract

Some struggles for prestige in academic technical communication are self-defeating and wasteful because of the clash between the material (or positive-sum) economy of the workplace and the positional (or zero-sum) economy of the academy. Some professors of technical communication create disrespect for themselves and their specialities because they create degrading representations of working people and their artifacts, they promote impossible standards, and they advance discredited or misleading theories. More profitable approaches to gaining prestige for academic technical communication include recognizing that not everyone can be the top person in the positional economy, studying works on the economics of prestige, and promoting the genuinely good works that already exist in academic technical communication.

Journal: Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published: 2008-07-01
DOI: 10.2190/tw.38.3.c
Open Access: Closed
Topics: technical communication

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

St.Amant et al. (2016)

Addressing the Incommensurable

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