Bachelor – Mediedesign NTNU Gjøvik

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Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Vol. 45 No. 1 2015
ctives and practices, in other words, when the target audience’s culture is
the primary characteristic that web authors and designers rely on to localize
content. (p. 14).
Hunsinger contends that technical communicators and web developers
need to be careful about using a monolithic idea of culture
as their orienting principle in developing online content for specific
local communities. Culture is a concept that is both unreliable and
unstable in online environments, and so Hunsinger further insists
that «cultural concerns must be contextualized as a specific element
among the contexts of the globalizing world» (p. 19), hence cultural
elements must be considered along with «non-cultural contexts,»
such as the legal, the economic, and the technological.
In chapter two, Clinton Lanier emphasizes how to make the user
the localization expert in customizing online content for global environments.
Lanier begins by providing an overview of the research
in this area and then moves into his discussion of «user-customizable»
online content–the term user customizable denoting «the ability
of a web site to be changed or modified by the site’s users rather
than by the designers» (p. 45). Lanier contends that shifting control
from the technical communicator to the user will help to mitigate
stereotypical representations and generalizations that might potentially
be made about a given set of people in a particular culture. An
important aspect of Lanier’s argument is his discussion of xml and
server side scripting, which he integrates into a discussion of how
specific cultural values influence rhetorical strategies (p. 51). xml
rather that html empowers the user to determine how the elements
of content are displayed on a web page through both link personalization
and content personalization (such as that found on My Yahoo!
or My Excite!). Lanier contends that technical communicators must
begin to familiarize themselves both with how information is constructed
rhetorically for different audiences, by learning how to design
culturally appropriate user interfaces (pp. 58-59).
In chapter 3, Matthew McCool’s essay concerns how to optimize
international information systems, arguing that developers need to
be less concerned about currency, translation, and time, and more
informed about their target audience. For such optimization to occur,
McCool contends that an «intercultural theory of mind« must
be developed and that such a theory is important because «international
information systems is based on the assumption that culture
informs language and linguistic classification» (p. 64). Thus, McCool
Brasher, Stephen H. Book Review: Culture, Communication, and Cyberspace
asserts a threepronged approach that involves:
• computational theory of mind;
• culture; and
• optimizing international information systems.
He argues that developing an intercultural theory of mind along
these lines will allow technical communicators and systems designers
to more effectively meet the communication demands of their
respective international and intercultural target audience(s).
In chapter 4, Martine Courant Rife addresses the important issue
of rhetoric and international intellectual property (IP) law in
cyberspace, arguing that «cyberspace challenges our traditional understanding
of geographically-based place and ties to geographically-based
law» (p. 79). In her argument, Rife considers several legal
cases, international definitions of what constitutes «originality,»
and a set of pertinent issues concerning geographical indicators, to
conclude that technical communicators should develop some expertise
in international intellectual property law, «using rhetoric to do
so» (p. 99), thus enabling technical communicators to add strategic
value to their respective organizations.
II. Online interactions between cultures
The second section of the book consists of three essays that move
the focus from the theoretical, to the more directly practical and
rhetorical. Each of the authors in this portion of the book provides
a series of case studies that demonstrate how various socio-cultural
factors affect both online interaction and communication strategies.
Daniel Ding begins this section with one of the most interesting
of the essays in this anthology. Here he considers the influence of
traditional Chinese agrarian cultural influence on modern Chinese
cyberspace communication. He pays particular attention to the
Confucian concept of naming as a way of uncovering patterns in
Chinese web design, particularly with respect to displays of verbal
information. Ding provides a comparative analysis of the visa application
process as presented respectively on China’s Foreign Ministry
website (cfm) and the u.s. Department of State (usds) website, analyzing
the differing rhetorical means through which each site seeks
to achieve its objective for the user.
Carol M. Barnum, in chapter 6, is concerned with how cultural
factors affect East/West online communication. She offers rhetorical
analysis of the communication differences that are obtained bet-
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