CONTEXTS

Recent & RelevantVirtuous or vicious? Agency andrepresentation in biotechnology’s virtuouscycleSunderland, N. (2009). Journal of Technical Writing and Communication,39, 381–400.“This article provides a fresh examination of claimsthat biotechnology and other high profile areas ofscientific research and development create a ‘virtuouscycle’ that delivers benefits to society and ecologythrough an array of consumer products. Specifically,the article investigates who and what has agency in thisvirtuous cycle and who and what does not. I argue thatofficial discourses on and definitions of biotechnologycreate strict demarcations not only on who can actin relation to biotechnology research developmentoptions, but also on where and at what stages ofthe virtuous cycle these agents can act. For example,scientists are presented as passive rather than activeagents whose influence is limited to the laboratorycontext despite rhetorical use of their identity andcredibility across all contexts of product developmentand consumption explored. Agency is highly significantin biotechnology and other areas of scientific advancebecause it determines who or what has moral decisionmaking power regarding the place of new technologiesin society. The article concludes with a discussion ofthe social and ethical impacts of these demarcations ofagency in biotechnology’s virtuous cycle.”Valerie J. VanceTechnologyDistributing memory: Rhetorical work indigital environmentsVan Ittersum, D. (2009). Technical Communication Quarterly, 18,259–280.“This article presents data from a long-term,qualitative study of writers appropriating new softwaretools for note taking. Instead of asking whether awriter knows how to use the discrete features specificto a software program, I argue that we might moreprofitably ask about the properties of functionalsystems that allow writers to flexibly meet the demandsof their literate activity.”Valerie J. VanceGuest editors’ introduction: Newtechnological spacesSwarts, J., & Kim, L. (2009). Technical Communication Quarterly, 18,211–223.Swarts and Kim examine genres and the space ofrhetorical action. Most of their introduction providescontext for the articles included in the special issue bydiscussing the topics of “Genres and the Spaces ofRhetorical Action,” “Places, Spaces, and RhetoricalAction,” “Modularity: The Structure of InformationSpaces,” “Literate Action in Hybrid Spaces,” and “WhyHybrid Spaces Matter in Technical Communication.”They conclude that “writing has become associatedwith a greater range of rhetorical acts that respond toand are shaped by the hybrid spaces where they arecarried out.”Valerie J. VanceI, myself and e-myselfRhee, C., Sanders, G. L., & Simpson, N. C. (2010). Communications ofthe ACM, 53(6), 154–157.“Although it is useful to understand the psychologicalunderpinning of online users, the adoption ofpsychological theories and instances should beperformed with caution and with due regard to370 Technical Communication l Volume 57, Number 3, August 2010