Research Overview

I pri­mar­ily work on three research areas: (1) rhetorics of infor­ma­tion labor, (2) infor­mation tech­nol­ogy assem­blages of the Web, and (3) rhetor­i­cal approaches to study­ing infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture. More pal­pa­bly, I study how design­ers, devel­op­ers, and tech­ni­cians talk about infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture, par­tic­u­larly its stan­dards and clas­si­fi­ca­tions. By infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture, I mean the enabling resources of infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies. Our lan­guage affects the world we live in, includ­ing its infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies. I there­fore work to iden­tify the rhetorics that sup­port infor­ma­tion infrastructure.

Pri­mary Research Questions:

  1. What rhetorics con­sis­tently appear through­out infra­struc­tural communication?
  2. How do these rhetorics gen­er­ate knowl­edge ontolo­gies through­out history?
  3. Which cul­tural val­ues are expressed dur­ing the design and use of infor­ma­tion infrastructure?
  4. How do val­ues of infra­struc­ture change across dif­fer­ent publics?
  5. How can this research be used to craft bet­ter infor­ma­tion infrastructure?

I’ll be link­ing full-text to these soon. In the mean time, con­tact me if you’d like a copy.

(Sep­tem­ber 2008) “Tech­ni­cal Doc­u­ments as Rhetor­i­cal Agency,” Archival Sci­ence, Vol. 8 Issue 3, 199–215

(April 29, 2011) “Pass­ing the ACID Test: Rhetorics of Web Stan­dard­iza­tion” paper for The SLIS/SOIS Research Forum 2011 in Mil­wau­kee, WI

(Novem­ber 16, 2010) “Con­sti­tut­ing Tech­ni­cal Stan­dards: How to Build an Infra­struc­ture” paper for The National Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Association’s 96th Annual Con­ven­tion in San Fran­cisco, CA

(Novem­ber 13, 2009) “A Dis­ci­pline and its Con­stituents: Shap­ing Schol­ar­ship through Admin­is­tra­tive Publics,” paper with co-panelists John Rief and Greg Schnei­der for The National Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Association’s 95th Annual Con­ven­tion in Chicago, IL

(Octo­ber 10, 2009) “The Ethics of a Bur­geon­ing Inter­net Pro­fes­sion: A His­tor­i­cal Study of Descrip­tive Ethics,” paper for The 10th Annual Con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Inter­net Researchers in Mil­wau­kee, WI

(Octo­ber 9, 2009) “Javascript Nin­jas, CSS Samu­rai, and Action­script Assas­sins: The Ethos of Inter­net Labor,” paper with co-panelists Bren­ton Stew­art, Pamela Con­ners, Katie Ramos, and Robert Glenn Howard for The 10th Annual Con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Inter­net Researchers in Mil­wau­kee, WI

(March 28, 2009) “Doc­u­ment­ing Infor­ma­tion Sci­ence,” paper for DOCAM 2009 in Madi­son, WI

(Jan­u­ary, 2009) “Tar­ry­ing with Orga­ni­za­tion: Ped­a­gog­i­cal Insights from the Post-Lacanian Tra­di­tion,” paper for Asso­ci­a­tion of Library and Infor­ma­tion Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion 2009 Annual Meet­ing in Den­ver, CO

(Octo­ber 28, 2008) “His­tory and Infor­ma­tion Essences in/of LIS Edu­ca­tion,” short paper for ASIS&T 2008 Annual Meet­ing in Colum­bus, OH

(May 16, 2008) “The CSS Stan­dard: A Crit­i­cal Analy­sis of Stan­dards and New Media Labor,” paper for Think­ing Crit­i­cally: Alter­na­tive Per­spec­tives and Meth­ods in Infor­ma­tion Stud­ies Con­fer­ence in Mil­wau­kee, WI

(March 28, 2008) “Doc­u­men­ta­tion and Medi­a­tion: The Effects of Web Stan­dards on Rhetor­i­cal Agency,” paper for DOCAM 2008 in Madi­son, WI