Technical Standards and a Theory of Writing as Infrastructure

Abstract

<jats:p> Infrastructures support and shape our social world, but they do so in often invisible ways. In few cases is that truer than with various documents that serve infrastructural functions. This article takes one type of those documents—technical standards—and uses analysis of one specific standard to develop theory related to the infrastructural function of writing. The author specifically analyzes one of the major infrastructures of the Internet of Things—the 126-page Tag Data Standard (TDS)—to show how rethinking writing as infrastructure can be valuable for multiple conversations occurring with writing studies, including research on material rhetoric, research that expands the scope of what should be studied as writing, and research in writing studies that links with emerging fields. The author concludes by developing a model for future research on the infrastructural functions of writing. </jats:p>

How to Build a Supercomputer: U.S. Research Infrastructure and the Documents That Mitigate the Uncertainties of Big Science

“…To speak of writing as “infrastructural” offers a new rhetorical commonplace for discussing the functions of writing in writing studies research and new opportunities to define what it means in conjunction with more established theoretical approaches, including rhetorical genre studies (RGS) and ANT, particularly as they have been discussed in this article. A theory of infrastructure for writing studies proceeds from prior research (Frith, 2020; Grabill, 2007, 2010; Hart-Davidson et al, 2007; Read, 2015; Swarts, 2010) that has set precedence by importing notions of infrastructure from the extensive scholarship done in information studies by Susan Leigh Star and her colleagues (e.g., Bowker & Star, 1999; Star & Ruhleder, 1996). Star’s body of work develops a relational theory of infrastructure that explains how information standards, which are negotiated, inscribed in and circulated via documents, enable much of our daily experience, such as the electrical grid and the internet.…”

Remote TPC Internships: Infrastructures for Success

“…Unlike traditional, in-person internships, though, remote internships may require a different kind of infrastructure to allow for student success. Infrastructure has been a term widely discussed in TPC (Frith, 2020; Hart-Davidson et al, 2007; Read, 2019). Infrastructures may be thought of broadly as embedded systems that facilitate patterns of action.…”

“…Building on earlier work in infrastructure studies, Read's theory of infrastructure for writing studies demonstrates “how infrastructural writing products and processes are not separate from an organization's normal operations but constitutive of them” (p. 258) through these qualities: “inclusiveness, relationally defined, alliance brokering, and mission critical” (p. 259). In an analysis of technical standards, Frith (2020) adopts Read's four categories of writing as infrastructure and expands on them by adding a fifth: “embeddedness.” This fifth category foregrounds how writing can create a foundation for other systemic and material practices. Noting that writing studies has used the term infrastructure mostly to discuss human infrastructures involving people rather than materials, Frith argues that documentation, while a type of “soft,” discursive infrastructure, can be made “hard,” as when technical standards are concretized and built into material objects such as RFID tags.…”

Gig Expectations: Literacy Practices, Events, and Texts in the Gig Economy

“…Crucially, however, it is in the design of the specific kind of platform that the scope and types of interaction among users are decided and defined, particularly in the user interface, where content is displayed to the user(s) and options for inhabiting specific roles and inputting content are made available. These platforms are made up of various kinds of written texts, some of which the platform user may see and some of which are invisible but provide the technical standards that dictate what can and can’t be done via the platform (Frith, 2020). As Srnicek (2017) reminds us, platforms are a kind of business model that is becoming ever more central to the global economy and though they may provide the infrastructure and intermediation between different groups, their primary function is the collection, storing, and management of user-generated data.…”