This article reports on the results of a research study supported by a CPTSC research grant that analyzed programmatic use of social media in professional, technical, and scientific communication programs (TPCs). This mixed-methods study included a survey of TPC program administrators (n = 29), an inventory of TPCs' social media account use (n = 70), and an inventory of TPCs' course offerings that included social media (n = 27). Results showed that programmatic use of social media requires strategic consideration, particularly in order to generate two-way communication, a goal of many of the TPCs studied. To that end, our article generates questions and guiding suggestions (drawn from our three-part study) to guide administrators who wish to include social media in their TPC.

The author reports on social media research in technical and professional communication (TPC) training through a national survey of 30 professional and technical communication programs asking about their use of social media in technical communication. This research forms the basis of recommendations for training online TPC faculty to teach with social media. The author offer recommendations throughout for those who train online TPC faculty as well as for the teachers themselves.

In the game industry, community managers engage in social and emotional labor as they split their loyalties between game communities and game companies. Community managers do not fully represent the interests of one group, and their intermediary role puts particular stresses on the types of emotional labor that they are called upon to enact. Further, community managers must also participate in social labor---work that builds and exploits social connections for monetary gain. Most of this labor, however, is undervalued and in some instances is simply uncompensated "free" labor carried out by members of a fan community. Ultimately, we argue, casting the role of the community manager as a social and emotional laborer feminizes this work, monetarily devaluing it while isolating workers in these roles from the communities that they ostensibly serve.

Recently, research into the intersection of computer games and technical writing has been increasing, with more conference presentations and publications interrogating communication within the comp...

The Web is big business, and our online communications and interactions and the data they leave behind are commodified by big business. Large-scale data aggregators, natural language systems that code and collect billions of posts, and tracking systems that follow our every click have fundamentally changed the spaces and places in which we compose, create, interact, research, and teach.

Comics—both digital and print—increasingly make their way to the classroom. Scholars in the field have illustrated the pedagogical value of comics, but there remains little discussion as of yet about how comics can inform critical literacy, a necessary skill for twenty-first-century communication. Here the authors discuss an approach to first-year composition that argues for using comics, like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home , as an avenue for grappling with critical literacy. This classroom activity was a part of a larger assignment sequence where students were asked to compose web-based literature reviews that incorporated multimodality. These literature reviews challenged students to incorporate multiple viewpoints into their essays, and critically discussing comics proved to be an effective method for fostering this critical literacy.

We argue that the local example of C’s the Day and “Sparklegate” is a moment that reflects larger tensions about the role of games in education and attitudes toward the field of game studies itself.

Digital badges are studied and implemented for a variety of purposes. Regardless of the specific application, all badges have one thing in common: they contain explicitly designed information meant to motivate users. This information is created by the badge's developer, transferred using the badge as a vessel, and assimilated by the user. In other words, badges are devices for communication. This article examines this communication process within social environments from three different perspectives---badges as rewards, feedback mechanisms, and narrative. For each of these perspectives, this article provides examples and discusses the type of information that can be communicated as well as the design considerations required for successful communication.

Interviews with:Steven Conway & Marc OuelletteJennifer deWinterKevin Moberly & Ryan MoellerJudd Ruggill & Ken McAllisterJason Thompson