Networks, Genres, and Complex Wholes: Citizen Science and How We Act Together through Typified Text

Abstract

This article explores the intersection of Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). These two traditions are particularly important in the Canadian research context. We examine genre and ANT to uncover what we believe is a complementary relationship that promises much to the study of science, especially in the age of the internet. Specifically, we see RGS as a way to account for how objects come to “be” as complex wholes and so act across/among levels of network configurations. Moreover, the nature of these objects’ (instruments’) action is such that we may attribute them to a kind of rhetorical agency. We look to the InFORM Network’s grassroots, citizen science-oriented response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as a case that exemplifies how a combined RGS and ANT perspective can articulate the complex wholes of material/rhetorical networks.Cet article examine Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) et Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Ces deux modes d’étude sont importants dans les contextes de la recherche Canadienne. Nous prennons genre et ANT, pour retrouver une perspective que nous croyons puisse contribuer beaucoup aux études de la science dans l’âge de l’internet. On comprend les genres de textes comme une moyenne de rendre compte de la façon dont les objets deviennent des ensembles complexes et donc agir entre les différents niveaux de configuration réseau. En plus, la nature des actions de ces objets (ou instruments scientifique) est telle qu’on puisse attribuer a eux une sorte d’agence rhétorique. Nous voyons le citizen science reponse de l’InFORM Network a la disastre au Fukushima Daiichi comme une example de la puissance d’un perspectif RGS/ANT pour articuler les “entieres-complexes” des networks qui sont material/rhetorical au meme temps.

Connecting Genres and Languages in Online Scholarly Communication: An Analysis of Research Group Blogs

“…These posts included links to tools or applications that facilitate this collaboration (e.g., link to a GitHub in some posts of the GENEURA blog). Similar to the way that the sampling kit used by volunteering citizens to collect water samples and thus contribute to scientific knowledge production is a genre (Kelly & Maddalena, 2016), the GitHub is a genre through which citizens can collaborate in research projects.…”

“…In the past decade there has been a growing interest in this type of blogging, as reflected by research on the function of blogs in the context of science communication, and on the motivations of academics for engaging in blogging about research (see Batts et al, 2008; Kjellberg, 2010; Luzón, 2013; Mahrt & Puschmann, 2014). In line with the current interest in citizen science and the role of genres (and in particular digital genres) in the performance of public actions (see Kelly & Maddalena, 2016; Rea & Riedlinger, 2016), recent research has also analyzed how science blogs make scientific knowledge available to different publics, facilitate discursive interaction with interested citizens, and contribute to the public understanding of science (see Luzón, 2013; Smart, 2016). Some studies have also examined blogs as part of practices of the communities within which they are enacted.…”

mHealth Apps for Older Adults: A Method for Development and User Experience Design Evaluation

“…Concepts of complex systems and multiplicities pervade research in which scholars consider usability testing and UX for health-care technologies. Researchers and theorists in composition studies and the rhetoric of health and medicine have developed research methods based on Guattari and Deleuze’s (2000) assemblage thinking (e.g., Angeli, 2018; Fox, 2002; Rice, 2008) and Latour’s (2005) actor-network theory (ANT; e.g., Kelly & Maddalena, 2016). 4 Several authors have also used Rivers and Söderlund’s (2016) concept of speculative usability, which applied ANT to usability testing and argued that researchers should consider and address all possible human and nonhuman contributors (Arduser, 2018; Cannon, Walkup, & Rea, 2016; Gouge, 2017).…”

Rhetorical Genres in Code

“…A considerable amount of genre research concerning the role of digital technologies has focused on discourse genres such as the blog (see, e.g., Giltrow & Stein, 2009; Herring, Scheidt, Bonus, & Wright, 2004; Miller & Shepherd, 2004, 2009). Others worked to integrate genre approaches with systems-oriented approaches to study digital ecologies, including activity theory (Spinuzzi, 2003a; 2003b; 2013) and actor-network theory (Kelly & Maddalena, 2015; 2016; Read, 2016). Increasingly, (rhetorical) 1 genre researchers have been attending to the complex new media environments, including the traditional purview in professional and scientific communication, although also exploring new modalities (Casper, 2016; Gonzalez-Pueyo & Redrado, 2003; Gross & Harmon, 2016; Mehlenbacher, 2017; Wickman, 2016).…”