CONTEXTS

Guest Editorialand ownership. As we branchout into areas such as medicalcommunication and marketingcommunication, we increasinglydeal with legal issues, includingliability, misrepresentation, andnegligence. Thus, our work makesus the content experts within ouremploying organizations.And Now, the ImportantQuestion—What’s in It For Us?The answers are job security andthe opportunity for advancement.Those at the center of contentcreation and content managementare ideally positioned to addvalue to their organizations bydeveloping practices that addresslegal friction points associated withinternational interactions.So What’s the Next Step?To address global friction points,technical communicators mustcombine their knowledge ofcontent creation and managementwith an understanding ofinternational legal issues affectingthose practices. The first step isto identify key international legalissues and then learn how theyaffect content-related practices ininternational contexts. The fivearticles in this special issue helpyou take this step.Nicole St. Germaine-McDanielexamines how migration andimmigration within the UnitedStates have resulted in newnational statutes governingtranslation and technicalcommunication practices. TatianaBatova reviews the clinical trialsprocess to shed light on howtechnical communication practicesand legal issues can intersectduring content creation activities.Heidi A. McKee and James E.Porter present an approach toresearching international legaland regulatory issues affectingtechnical communication practices.Liza Potts uses Actor NetworkTheory to analyze internationalcontent distribution issues—andtheir legal implications—relatedto digital rights management. AndTyAnna K. Herrington examinesinternational copyright and fairuse issues that can affect contentcreation and content management.These articles provide arelatively broad-based review oflegal issues affecting technicalcommunication practices in globalcontexts. We hope that readerswill use these ideas to create bestpractices and engage in research inthe area of global legal issues. Byworking together to examine suchissues, we can improve the flow ofcontent across the flatter earth.About the AuthorsKirk St.Amant (stamantk@ecu.edu) is an associate professorof technical and professionalcommunication at East CarolinaUniversity.Martine Courant Rife(martinerife@gmail.com) isa professor of writing andcoordinator of the Business andTechnical Writing Program atLansing Community College.Martine also maintains an activelicense to practice law in Michigan.250 Technical Communication l Volume 57, Number 3, August 2010