#grabill

[unteriors]

Main Street, Grabill, Indiana.

[phdannotations]

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and Michele W. Simmons. “Toward a Critical Rhetoric of Risk Communication: Producing Citizens and the Role of Technical Communicators” Technical Communication Quarterly. 7(4). 1998. 415-441. Doi.org/10.1080/105722598909364640.

In this article, Grabill and Simmons focus on the social construction of risk and risk communication. Their study attempts to define risk as arhetorical by decontextualizing the concepts of risk and failure as something that is socially constructed. Grabill and Simmons define risk as currently having three aspects in the professional communication field: as something that “dissolves the separation between assessment and communication,” foregrounds the power in risk communication, and the technical communicator is the only person with the research and writing skills necessary for all of the processes involved in risk communication (360). Their goal was to define how important it is to examine both the disciplines and the institutions involved in risk communication to better understand how the various hierarchies of power are established and exercised in the communication of risk. These definitions of communication structure and power create a new meaning (at least for 1998) into how we as technical communicators are “supposed to” communicate with the “general public.”

Grabill and Simmons use Michel Foucault’s “The Subject and Power” as a lens through which to look at the concepts of risk and the power structures involved in the conversations surrounding risk. Foucault claims that “institutions exercise power through regulating and constraining knowledge making, production and consumption through rules and practices. Understanding how power is exercised, and looking for gaps, we can resist, even alter, unequal power relations” (as qtd. In Grabill and Simmons, 361-362). Foucault’s view (and Grabill and Simmon’s) shows that the power structures involved in document construction is one in which the power of decision making is given to “experts.” This choice of decision making, and distribution of information ends up masking the complex social connections and interactions that are involved in the creation of knowledge, therefor denying the citizens involved any real power in the creation of the knowledge and limiting the social needs of knowledge making. This, I (and Grabill and Simmons) would claim, would also weaken the message given by the “experts.”

This article holds some very important connections for my potential research, one is that I probably need to better acquaint myself with Foucault, and the other is that power formation is something that has the ability to evolve the messages of technical communicators for good and for ill. By looking at how risk communication deals with the social needs (or doesn’t) of the field, I will be able to find connections to other research. There are some interesting parallels between social construction, risk communication, and power structures that I should be aware of in looking at the needs of the audience. This helps inform my research when defining what is social within the field and being aware of who the decision makers are and how that can affect the work produced, its interactions and its intentions. Also, being aware of various communication structures, how they work, and how they are perceived is something that all technical communicators should be aware of.

[harvard-art-museums-photography]

Kicking Bear in Natural Costume, Grabill, 1880s, Harvard Art Museums: Photographs

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Size: image: 23 x 19.6 cm (9 1/16 x 7 11/16 in.) mount: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in.)

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/157577

[harvard-art-museums-photography]

Indian Chiefs Who Counciled with Gen. Miles and Settled the Indian War, Grabill, 1880s, Harvard Art Museums: Photographs

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts Size: image: 16.2 x 22.6 cm (6 3/8 x 8 7/8 in.) mount: 17.3 x 25 cm (6 13/16 x 9 13/16 in.)

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/157050

[rlimarjbr]

The #Deadwood #Coach, 1889. John H.C. #Grabill #Photo. #Year1889 #Ano1889 #Foto #Carruagem #XIX #Transporte #JohnGrabill #Luxo #Ricos ... https://www.instagram.com/p/B4dRUEcn2iu/?igshid=1twn4zdgwo178

[queerspaceprince]

Flea Market haul! -interchangeable watch set-$10 -Moon Necklace-$3.50 -Barracuda Pocket Knife-$15 -Essential oil blend (Lemon, Rosemary, Amyris)-$8 -Beanie Baby Snek-$4 -Dragon Coloring Book-$12

[writ-2311-01-f17]

In a topic that is very controversial between modern and old-fashioned styled people, I think Grabill did a good job of stating how rhetoric continues evolving as we technologically advance as humans. The way we use rhetoric in our modern day platforms such as social media makes it easy for dialogue to come about. The way that social media is designed, it allows people of common interests to connect.

Sam V

[writ-2311-02-f17]

The Rhetoric of Listening

If there’s a theme I’ve gathered from studying rhetoric, it’s that being “right” isn’t enough. In fact, being “right” and having the best intentions have little to do with rhetoric itself. Rhetoric must have the power to make connections and changes in the real world as well as on paper. Simply having and arguing your opinion is never enough. Jeffery T. Grabill explains this in depth in “On Being Useful” by providing us with the more hands-on notion of rhetoric as a force to literally bring people together and a way to open channels of communication from the ground up. It’s an effort to reverse engineer rhetoric, so that discussions build and grow from real-world application rather than trickling down from discourse to community.   This approach introduced a new (to me) angle of rhetoric: listening. Rhetoric shouldn’t only be thought of as the “speech acts” of one entity to another. Rather, it should be considered a conversation among social groups, and the resulting “re-associations and reassembling” of those group connections.  This means that rhetoric isn’t limited to holding the microphone. It’s also the act of passing it on.

-- Elora