Sean C. Herring, Editor
The following articles on technical communication have appeared recently in other journals. The abstracts are prepared by volunteer journal monitors. If you would like to contribute, contact Sean Herring at SeanHerring@MissouriState.edu.
“Recent & Relevant” does not supply copies of cited articles. However, most publishers supply reprints, tear sheets, or copies at nominal cost. Lists of publishers’ addresses, covering nearly all the articles we have cited, appear in Ulrich’s international periodicals directory.
Audience analysis
Gran got tech: Inclusivity and older adults
Schumacher, R. M. (2023). Journal of User Experience, 18(2), 62–67. [doi: none]
This essay calls for UX professionals “to be more inclusive of older adults in [UX] design and research.” The author provides numerous examples of the “poor usability and excessive functionality of digital devices and websites” that create obstacles for older users attempting to conduct online banking, access online healthcare and government information, purchase electronic tickets, connect to streaming devices, and participate in other online activities. While acknowledging the value of security technology such as multifactor authentication, the author notes that the complexity of these features may exclude older users from taking full advantage of them. The author recommends UX professionals deepen their understanding of older user groups, reduce unnecessary points of technological friction, and include more older adults in product design and testing.
Lyn Gattis
Collaboration
The structuration of identification on organizational members’ social media
Piercy, C. W., & Carr, C. T. (2023). International Journal of Business Communication, 60, 464–486. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488420955215
“The structurational model of identification is applied to test structures that may lead to sharing organizational membership on social media and increased organizational identification. [The authors] propose and test how antecedents (e.g., social media use, organizational prestige) relate to acts of identification on social media and promote organizational identification. United States working adults (N = 303) responded to an online survey about hypothesized motivational structures, online disclosures of organizational affiliation, and organizational identification. Results show three specific structures significantly predicted one’s willingness to share her or his organizational affiliation across social media: personae overlap, social media use, and organizational prestige. Commitment and turnover intentions were, surprisingly, not direct predictors of organizational affiliation disclosure. Implications for individuals, organizations, and both organizational and computer-mediated theory are presented.”
Katherine Wertz
Unofficial vaccine advocates: Technical communication, localization, and care by COVID-19 vaccine trial participants
Campeau, K. (2023). Technical Communication Quarterly, 32, 149-164, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2100485
“This article reports on an interview-based study with COVID-19 vaccine trial participants (n = 40) and addresses three strategies participants used to localize vaccine communication for their communities: (1) presenting embodied evidence, (2) demystifying clinical research, (3) operationalizing relationships. These strategies contribute to understandings of embodiment, relationships, and localization in technical and professional communication (TPC). They also show how participants used TPC to resist dominant individualist approaches to health and to practice collective care.”
Rhonda Stanton
Communication
The use of enterprise social media and its disparate effects on the social connectivity of globally dispersed workers
Kim, H., & Pilny, A. (2023). International Journal of Business Communication, 60, 420–438. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488419877233
“Research has suggested that the use of enterprise social media (ESM) can help employees enhance their social connectivity. Despite the potential benefits, the effects of ESM use can be multifaceted since workers may engage with the tool in varied ways. Drawing on the three metaphors of ESM as a social lubricant, leaky pipe, and echo chamber, this study investigates different patterns of ESM use and their influences on distributed workers’ social networks. The analysis of full network data collected in a global high-tech organization revealed that ESM use for company-wide communication was positively associated with globally dispersed workers’ network size, betweenness, and external connections. By contrast, ESM use for private group communication was negatively linked to their network size and betweenness. The findings indicate that ESM use may lead to disparate social connectivity outcomes, depending on the usage patterns that vary by groups and individuals.”
Katherine Wertz
Design
Visualizing a drug abuse epidemic: Media coverage, opioids, and the racialized construction of public health frameworks
Welhausen, C.A.: (2023). Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 53(2), 106-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816221125186
“In technical and professional communication, the social justice turn calls on us to interrogate sites of positionality, privilege, and power to help foreground strategies that can empower marginalized groups. [The author] propose[s] that mainstream media coverage of the opioid epidemic represents such a site because addiction to these drugs, which initially primarily affected White people, has been positioned as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice problem. [The author] explore[s] the strategies that were used to create this positioning by investigating themes in the visual rhetoric as conveyed through data visualizations and in the text of the articles in which these graphics were published. [The author’s] results align with two previous studies that confirmed this public health framing. [The author] also observed an emphasis on mortality, which contributes to our understanding of rhetorical strategies that can be used to engender support rather than condemnation for those suffering from drug addiction.”
Anita Ford
Diversity
Exploring healthcare communication gaps between U.S. universities and their international students: A technical communication approach
Balghare, A. J. (2023). Communication Design Quarterly, 11(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563890.3563892
“U.S. healthcare is a complicated system not just for U.S.-born citizens but also international students in the U.S. While universities inform international students about how U.S. healthcare functions, these students still struggle with navigating healthcare owing to the cultural and technical challenges they face with the system. This paper investigates how U.S. healthcare information can be conveyed effectively by universities so that international students navigate healthcare with fewer challenges. This research was conducted using qualitative methods with 12 international student participants at a U.S. university. Using the collected data, the study provides recommendations to improve healthcare communication on campuses and insights to increase the scope of this study to further investigate international students’ healthcare access challenges.”
Lyn Gattis
Education
“Who am I fighting for? Who am I accountable to?”: Comradeship as a frame for nonprofit community work in technical communication
Carlson, E. B. (2023). Technical Communication Quarterly, 32, 165-180, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2085810
“While entrepreneurship is a pervasive cultural concept, it is not universally applicable. Drawing on a year-long study with nonprofit workers, this piece articulates a frame for understanding technical and professional communication work within nonprofits rooted in comradeship, which privileges community needs, everyday people, listening, and solidarity across stakeholder groups. Such a frame offers a more nuanced understanding of how accountability frames the work of nonprofit employees and other stakeholders dedicated to social justice.”
Rhonda Stanton
Ethical issues
Leadership is needed for ethical ChatGPT: Character, assessment, and learning using artificial intelligence (AI)
Crawford, J., Cowling, M., & Allen, K. (2023). Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 20(3). https://doi.org/10.53761/1.20.3.02
“The OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer was released in November 2022 without significant warning, and has taken higher education by storm since. The artificial intelligence (AI)- powered chatbot has caused alarm for practitioners seeking to detect authenticity of student work. Whereas some educational doomsayers predict the end of education in its current form, we propose an alternate early view. We identify in this commentary a position where educators can leverage AI like ChatGPT to build supportive learning environments for students who have cultivated good character. Such students know how to use ChatGPT for good, and can engage effectively with the ChatGPT application. In building our ChatGPT argument, we acknowledge the existing literature on plagiarism and academic integrity, and consider leadership as a root support mechanism, character development as an antidote, and authentic assessment as an enabler. In doing so, we highlight that while ChatGPT – like papermills, and degree factories before it – can be used to cheat on university exams, it can also be used to support deeper learning and better learning outcomes for students. In doing so, we offer a commentary that offers opportunities for practitioners, and research potential for scholars.”
Yvonne Wade Sanchez
Power, freedom, and privacy on a discipline-and-control Facebook, and the implications for internet governance
Cheung, M., & Chen, Z. T. (2022). IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 65(4), 467–484. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2022.3191103
“. . . Despite intensified privacy concerns and crises over social media, there is little research on the correlations between users’ privacy perception and protection in non-Western settings.” This study explores the extent to which “Hong Kong Facebook users [are] willing to sacrifice control over their information in exchange for self-expression, sociality, and intimacy in their social roles and relationships. . . .” The study was “[i]nformed by the recent literature on the privacy paradox and Foucault and Deleuze’s work on power, the unbalanced and normalizing power relationship between Facebook and its users in Eastern contexts . . . identified as a synthesis of discipline and control.” To analyze “privacy perception and protection” the authors surveyed 797 young users in Hong Kong in three areas: “Facebook usage, attitudes and behaviors, and basic demographics.” According to the authors, the survey data support the hypothesis “that the privacy paradox is evident for Facebook users in Hong Kong . . . [and] excessive Facebook use leads to reactive privacy awareness and normalization behaviors.” The authors “believe that technology giants, such as Facebook, should be pioneers in safeguarding users’ privacy while encouraging the establishment of social relationships and freedom of expression. The implications for internet governance are discussed from a multistakeholder perspective.”
Lyn Gattis
Updated guidance on the reporting of race and ethnicity in medical and science journals
Frey, T. (2023). American Medical Writers Association Journal, 38(1), 36-39. [doi: none]
“The language used to describe study participants in medical literature is of paramount importance. The objective is to use the terms that people use to describe themselves while also being sensitive and consistent, supporting diversity, and conveying respect. It is also important to medical editors that a style guide reflects [their] responsibilities and need for clear guidance. To this end, the AMA Manual of Style committee reassessed [their] guidance on race and ethnicity soon after its release in February 2020 because [they] realized that [their] guidance already needed to be updated. [The committee] started with some small steps, like deciding to capitalize all racial and ethnic categories including Black and White, and then ended up dismantling the entire section in [their] quest to develop more robust, comprehensive, and thoughtful guidance. After almost a year of research, updates, external review, and further revision, [the committee] published [their] efforts to garner public feedback, which was successful and led to further revision and review. When [the committee was] confident that [their] guidance met [their] objectives, [they] published [their] revision in August 2021. Updates include definitions of commonly used terms associated with race and ethnicity, concerns and controversies in health care and research, racial and ethnic collective term usage, alphabetization of racial and ethnic categories, and geographic origin and regionalization considerations, and [they] provide examples to help guide authors and editors. [This] current guidance is more reflective and complete, and [the committee plans] to make further revisions as the language and culture evolve.”
Walter Orr
Health communication
The Coping with COVID Project: Participatory public health communication
Swacha, K. Y. (2023). Communication Design Quarterly, 11(1), 4–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563890.3563891
“This paper reports on The Coping with COVID Project, a qualitative study and public-facing platform that invited participants to share their experiences, via stories and images, with navigating COVID-related public health guidelines. The study revealed daily activities during the pandemic summarized in three themes: lived ‘compliance’; emplaced, storied negotiations; and affective, embodied efforts. In light of such findings, this article outlines recommendations for a participatory, actionable story and visual-driven approach to public health communication that recognizes the various contexts—e.g., physical, material, affective, structural—which impact how such communication is interpreted and acted upon by people in their daily lives. A heuristic is included for communicators, researchers, and community members to use in enacting this approach.”
Lyn Gattis
Information management
A content analysis of HIV-related stigmatizing language in the scientific literature, From 2010-2020: Findings and recommendations for editorial policy
Parisi, C.E., Varas-Rodriguez, E., Algarin, A.B., Richards, V., Li, W., Cruz Carrillo, L., Ibanez, G.E. (2023). Health Communication. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2023.2207289
“Despite negative effects of HIV-related stigma on people with HIV, some scientific literature continues to use stigmatizing terms. Our study aimed to explore the use of HIV-related stigmatizing language in the scientific literature between 2010 and 2020 based on 2015 UNAIDS terminology guidelines. We searched for articles with the stigmatizing term “HIV/AIDS-infected” or any variations that were peer-reviewed, published between 2010 and 2020, and in English or with an English translation. Our search yielded 26,476 articles that used the stigmatizing term of interest. Frequencies on the variables of interest (journal, year, and country) were run. The use of these terms increased from 2010 to 2017 and decreased from 2018 to 2020. Most journals using the terms were HIV/AIDS specific or on infectious diseases, but the journal with the greatest frequency of use was on general science and medicine. Thirty-six percent of the articles emanated from the United States. To reduce the use of stigmatizing language in the HIV literature, action should be taken by authors, reviewers, editors, educators, and publishers should create formal policies promoting use of non-stigmatizing language.”
Walter Orr
Instructions
Constructing structured content on WordPress: Emerging paradigms in web content management
Carter, D. (2023). Communication Design Quarterly, 11(1), 42–52. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563890.3563894
“Web content management systems (WCMSs) are widely used technologies that, like previous writing tools, shape how people think about and create documents. Despite their influence and ubiquity, however, WCMSs have received exceedingly little attention from scholars interested in social aspects of technology. [The author] begin[s] to address this gap by analyzing the development of WordPress’s content creation experience through the lens of structured content. Based on this analysis, [the author] contribute[s] to ongoing discussions of content management by first suggesting that concepts such as structured content need to be understood as the contingent products of technical lineages and technical and social relationships and by second drawing attention to emerging paradigms of content creation, such as the merging of content creation and arrangement and the conflation of visual and abstract representations of content objects.”
Lyn Gattis
Intercultural communication
Relationship cultivation via social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from China and the U.S.
Huang, Q., Lynn, B. J., Dong, C., Ni, S., & Men, L. R. (2023). International Journal of Business Communication, 60, 512–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294884211067805
“This study explored the relationship cultivation and social media strategies companies used to cultivate relationships with their publics in two culturally distinct markets of China and the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. A quantitative content analysis of Weibo (n = 756) and Twitter (n = 645) posts from Fortune 500 companies in China (n = 30) and the U.S. (n = 30) respectively was conducted to examine the effects of their relational efforts on public engagement. Results showed that certain relationship cultivation strategies and use of social media functions effectively increased public engagement in both China and the U.S., although on different levels. Both Chinese and U.S. companies most frequently adopted the strategy of openness. While the openness strategy was most effective at raising engagement levels in the U.S., publics of Chinese companies became more engaged when companies used the access strategy. Also, publics of Chinese companies showed higher levels of engagement and more positive emotions toward companies’ social media messages than their U.S. counterparts. The findings advance our understanding of organization-public relationships in a worldwide disaster setting, with insights informing the global public relations theory and practices.”
Katherine Wertz
Leadership
Managing in writing: Recommendations from textual patterns in managers’ email communication
Molek-Kozakowska, K. & Molek-Winiarska, D. (December 2022). Business and Professional Communication Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294906221137860
“This study draws from personality psychology and linguistics of written communication to explore the characteristics of self-selected well-written email communications (N=273) solicited from Polish managers who organized and supervised the (remote) work of their units during the COVID-19 period. The focus is on the writing of managers with above-average levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness, as these personality factors are predictors of efficacy in the completion of two work-related goals, Achievement and Communion, according to the Theory of Purposeful Work Behavior. The linguistic patterns responsible for effective email communication are identified through both automated and qualitative textual analyses of the email sample. The study has implications for management training via the assumption that linguistic patterns that a reflexive manager uses in writing are subjected to monitoring and can be modeled and adapted to. Specific recommendations for managerial writing styles concern informational, instructional, explanatory, feedback, and query messages.”
Diana Fox Bentele
Political discourse
A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of news construction of the Flint water crisis
Kong. Y. (2022). IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 65(4), 450–466. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2022.3200286
“. . . Covering a multilayered disaster that grew from a local story to a national one, the ways that news media at different levels construct the Flint water crisis have not been previously explored. . . .This study integrates corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to analyze 1858 news reports about the Flint water crisis published between 2014 and 2018 [using] keywords as a core analytical technique to compare the local/regional and national news coverage. . . . The results show that both local and national news reports overemphasized government activities while downplaying the unofficial voices of Flint residents and community activists. In addition, national newspapers were more likely than local newspapers to use racial cues in describing the Flint community and to associate the crisis with other social problems. . . . This study suggests that news media should provide wide coverage of the affected community’s efforts in risk/crisis communication rather than reproducing official messages. News representations should be cautious of strengthening stereotypes or forming negative conceptual associations of traditionally disenfranchised communities.”
Lyn Gattis
Navigating water cooler talks without the water cooler: Uncertainty and information seeking during remote socialization
Woo, D., Endacott, C.G., & Myers, K.K. (May 2023). Management Communication Quarterly,37 (2). https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221105916
“Research on newcomer uncertainty and information seeking behaviors has largely assumed that newcomers could interact with and observe others in physical work settings. This study examined how organizational newcomers sought information during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic without such possibility. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 individuals who began jobs remotely between February and November 2020, we uncovered three major areas of uncertainty: workplace relationships, task/role performance, and organizational norms. Our findings demonstrate how these newcomers managed the uncertainties through six information seeking tactics: organizing virtual small talks; initiating unsanctioned in-person meetings; asking overt and targeted questions; utilizing digital repositories; unintentional limit testing; and anticipating future information seeking. We discuss implications for remote newcomer socialization and provide propositions for future research.”
Diana Fox Bentele
Slack, social justice, and online technical communication pedagogy
Sano-Franchini, J., Jones Jr, A.M., Ganguly, P., Robertson, C., Shafer, L., Wagnon, M., Awotayo, Ol, Bronson, M. (2023). Technical Communication Quarterly, 32, 134-148, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2085809
“This Methodologies and Approaches piece interfaces conversations about social justice pedagogies in technical and professional communication (TPC), Black TPC, and online TPC instruction to discuss the social justice affordances of Slack in online instruction. Drawing on our experiences using Slack within an online graduate course during the COVID-19 pandemic, we consider how Slack supports pedagogical community building and accessibility in online instruction before presenting a framework for assessing instructional technologies in terms of social justice.”
Rhonda Stanton
Public relations
Making a case for Political technical communication (Pxtc)
Cheek, R. (2023). Technical Communication Quarterly, 32, 121-133, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2079726
“In this article, I argue that the accelerated adoption of political technology during the COVID-19 pandemic evinces exigency for a rhetorically grounded framework to teach, research, and practice political technical communication (PxTC) as a sub-discipline. As a starting point, I use a rhetorical genre studies approach to identify political social actions that separate political communication technologies into four distinct genres: election, electioneering, constituent services, and punditry.”
Rhonda Stanton
Signaling, verification, and identification: The way corporate social advocacy generates brand loyalty on social media
Park, K., & Jiang, H. (2023). International Journal of Business Communication, 60, 439–463. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488420907121
“Scholars have become increasingly interested in the importance of corporate social advocacy to an organization’s bottom line. However, few researchers have investigated the subliminal mechanism with which corporations’ political engagement attracts public attention and creates positive corporate-public relationships. This study examines corporations’ identification with sociopolitical issues as an identity signaling practice. Rooted in the signaling and social identity theories, this study proposes a model that demonstrates the positive effects of corporate social advocacy activities on brand loyalty. This study sheds light on the role of brand community engagement as a signal verification process. Public-company identification leads to brand loyalty, which indicates the public’s acceptance of a corporation’s signal. [The authors] tested [their] proposed model through an online survey with participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 960). Theoretical and practical contributions of this study were discussed.”
Katherine Wertz
Research
The structuration of identification on organizational members’ social media
Piercy, C. W., & Carr, C. T. (2023). International Journal of Business Communication, 60, 464–486. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488420955215
“The structurational model of identification is applied to test structures that may lead to sharing organizational membership on social media and increased organizational identification. [The authors] propose and test how antecedents (e.g., social media use, organizational prestige) relate to acts of identification on social media and promote organizational identification. United States working adults (N = 303) responded to an online survey about hypothesized motivational structures, online disclosures of organizational affiliation, and organizational identification. Results show three specific structures significantly predicted one’s willingness to share her or his organizational affiliation across social media: personae overlap, social media use, and organizational prestige. Commitment and turnover intentions were, surprisingly, not direct predictors of organizational affiliation disclosure. Implications for individuals, organizations, and both organizational and computer-mediated theory are presented.”
Katherine Wertz
Rhetoric
Identifying digital rhetoric in the telemedicine user interface
Campbell, J.L.: (2023). Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 53(2), 89-105. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816221125184
“Telemedicine is an alternative healthcare delivery system whereby patients access digital technology to consult with a physician virtually. Patients first interact with telemedicine via a consumer-facing website. Telemedicine promises numerous benefits to patients, such as increased access to healthcare, yet poor usability of the telemedicine user interface (UI) may hinder patient acceptance and adoption of the service. The telemedicine UI moderates patients’ ability to utilize telemedicine, and therefore it must be usable, but it must also be rhetorical to motivate patients to perform certain actions. Digital rhetoric refers to UI elements that influence user actions and knowledge and is tied to usability because of these same human–computer interaction (HCI) factors. This study examined the usability of three telemedicine provider UIs and by identifying usability problems, reveals digital rhetoric that is significant to telemedicine UIs. The article concludes by offering heuristics of digital rhetoric that lead to optimal usability.”
Anita Ford
Working to resonate: Rhetorical mapping of disciplinary stances about technology, risk, and the brain
Lambrecht, K. (2023). Technical Communication Quarterly, 32, 196-211, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2100484
“Our largest multidisciplinary problems outpace disciplinary training designed to reinforce boundaries. Using an interdisciplinary conversation about adolescent brain imaging, I argue that disciplinary stances (interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary) operate like rhetorical stases, helping diagnose where conversations build or diverge among experts. Because what constitutes interdisciplinarity is contested, mapping rhetorical features of each disciplinary stance stabilizes definitional debates by grounding interactions in specific discursive practices and offers technical communicators ways to facilitate and participate in stronger crossdisciplinary communication.”
Rhonda Stanton
Scientific writing
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, and Natural Language Generation in Medical Writing
Palasamudram D., Karunakaran, K.S., Gaur, P., Kamath, A.M., Saha, P. & Purushotam, T. (2023). American Medical Writers Association Journal, 38(1), 45-50. [doi: none]
“Medical writing is a process that generates a variety of documents in the biomedical domain, including but not limited to clinical reports, regulatory reports, protocol documents, patient narratives, plain language summaries, and so on. Medical writing is complex and time-consuming because a writer must refer to multiple sources, sift through a large volume of documents, maintain data integrity, perform review of literature, do interpretation of results, summarize, and so on. These challenges can be addressed and minimized substantially by adopting artificial intelligence, specifically cognitive search, natural language processing (NLP), and natural language generation (NLG) models and other techniques. Given the recent advances in language models for NLG, the time is ripe for a product in the medical writing domain that integrates and automates search capabilities, provides cognitive processing, and generates content using NLG. This white paper takes scientific manuscript writing as an example to provide insights into the way NLP and NLG can augment, automate, and expedite the process of writing a wide variety of biomedical documents. It looks at the current limitations of technology and ways to address those. Finally, it provides recommendations on how these technologies can be used to create a single system or product. Such an approach has the potential to expand into multiple areas in the biomedical domain, with medical writing as the first challenge.”
Walter Orr
Social Justice
Questioning neoliberal rhetorics of wellness: Designing programmatic interventions to better support graduate instructor wellbeing
Clem, S., & Buyserie, B. (2023). Communication Design Quarterly, 11(1), 32–41. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563890.3563893
“Previous research has recognized the neoliberal trends that permeate the rhetorics of academic wellness, placing the responsibility for wellbeing on individuals rather than institutions and systems. In this study, the authors implemented a participatory action research (PAR) project to collaborate with different stakeholders in one university writing program and develop programmatic approaches to support the wellbeing one subset of academic faculty: graduate student instructors. Along with an account of how [they] adapted [their] PAR methodology to align with the wellness needs of [their] participants, [the authors] also provide a description and analysis of the intervention developed collaboratively in the PAR group. [They] end with five takeaways that researchers and stakeholders in graduate student education can apply to developing programmatic interventions that better support graduate instructor wellbeing: 1) research methodologies should adapt to foreground wellbeing; 2) productive conversations about wellbeing should start by acknowledging and validating the lived experience of graduate instructors; 3) students want to be involved in programmatic processes and procedures that support their wellbeing; 4) facilitating (but not requiring) non-productive social interaction among grad students can support GI wellbeing; 5) the work of supporting wellbeing is never fully done—[the authors] call on administrators, faculty members, and students to continue this work.”
Lyn Gattis
Teaching
Feature on teaching and technology: Teaching MBA students business report writing using social media technologies
Mehra, P. (May 2023). Business and Professional Communication Quarterly,86 (2). https://doi.org/10.1177/23294906231165569
Similar to techniques such as user-analysis and writing for a specific audience that technical writers do, this study used case studies of social media posts to move MBA students to analyze users and make decisions for reports and presentations. “Data-driven decision making has now moved beyond its traditional domains … to ‘softer subjects,’ such as human resource management, organization behavior, and business communication. In this context, teaching with technology encourages students to … communicate across a wide variety of stakeholders. In the era of multimodal forms of communication and multiple data sources, management students must be analytical when writing compelling reports and giving persuasive presentations. They should be well versed in using both quantitative and qualitative techniques for report writing and presentation. Drawing on authentic user-generated comments on social media, this article presents two case studies … to demonstrate how master’s in business administration (MBA) students could derive insights from the online comments to make strategic decisions for organizational benefit and make reports based on those findings. The article asserts that this could help to cultivate a data-analytic mindset among the students by preparing them to communicate small (and big) data-driven analysis to relevant stakeholders. It attempts to suggest ways to develop MBA students’ ability to analyze their potential audiences as well as to generate meaningful insights from the available information on social media websites.”
Diana Fox Bentele
Technology
Evaluating and ranking the digital content generation components for marketing the libraries and information centres’ goods and services using fuzzy TOPSIS technique
Naseri, Zahra; Noroozi Chakoli, Abdolreza; Malekolkalami, Mila (2023). Journal of Information Science, (49)1, 261-282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551521998045
“Since content audiences, including libraries and information centres, are increasingly geared to digital environments and virtual networks, the production and delivery of high-quality digital content are becoming continuously important. So far, several components have been introduced by researchers for evaluating the quality of digital content generation. However, due to the uncertainty of the importance rate and value of each of these components, it has not yet been possible to use them effectively to evaluate the content produced. This study aimed to rank the components of content generation to allow accurate evaluation of them for users as well as content providers and distributors including libraries and marketers. The ranked content can motivate digital content producers and distributors to better evaluate the quality of digital content, better attract customers and make more effective decisions about the quality of digital content use based on their specific goals. Initially, ٤٢ of the most important components were identified from the literature. Then, the next steps were taken to rank these components, and based on three rounds of Delphi interviews, the experts’ views on the importance rate of each of the components were obtained, analysed and ranked. Since in this ranking, the importance of a wide range of components should be highlighted towards each other, the fuzzy TOPSIS technique was emphasised for analysing the views of 16 experts in the field of content generation in Iran. This ranking indicated that components such as ‘findable and access’, ‘non-disturbing and helpful’, ‘clear’ and ‘remarkable’ are the main pillars of content generation and are of the utmost importance. The results can be used as an effective tool to improve the quality of content. Moreover, it increases audience engagement in digital environments and social networks, and encourages them to make more use of the digital content of libraries.”
Yvonne Wade Sanchez
Usability studies
Embodying empathy: Using game design as a maker pedagogy to teach design thinking
Colby, R.S. (2023). Technical Communication Quarterly, 32, 181-195, https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2077453
“This article argues that game design can be used to teach design thinking within a pedagogy of making. It analyzes qualitative survey responses from 12 writing teachers who asked students to design social justice games and argues that games not only give students practice in design thinking but that, as multimodal, embodied systems, games can enact social theories and, as such, be a way for students to empathize with and design for wicked social problems.”
Rhonda Stanton
User experience
Chatbot-Based Services: A study on customers’ reuse intention
Silva, F.A.; Shojaei, A.S.; Barbosa, B. (2023). Journal of Theoretical & Applied Electronic Commerce Research. Vol. 18(1), 457-474. https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer18010024
“The main objective of this article is to investigate the factors that influence customers’ intention to reuse chatbot-based services. The study employs a combination of the technology acceptance model (TAM) with other contributions in the literature to develop a theoretical model that predicts and explains customers’ intention to reuse chatbots. The research uses structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the proposed hypotheses. Data collected from 201 chatbot users among Portuguese consumers were analyzed, and the results showed that user satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and subjective norm are significant predictors of chatbot reuse intentions. Additionally, the findings indicated that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and trust have a positive impact on attitudes toward using chatbots. Trust was found to have a significant impact on perceived usefulness, user satisfaction, and attitudes toward using chatbots. However, there was no significant effect of attitude toward using chatbots, perceived ease of use, trust, and perceived social presence on reuse intentions. The article concludes with theoretical contributions and recommendations for managers.”
Yvonne Wade Sanchez
A comparison of SUS, UMUX-LITE, and UEQ-S
Schrepp, M., Kollmorgen, J., & Thomaschewski, J. (2023). Journal of User Experience, 18(2), 86–104. [doi: none]
“A loyal customer base depends upon a good user experience over the product’s complete lifetime. Successful products are continuously developed over a long period. Their functionality and complexity typically grow over years, so it is important to measure their user experience continuously. A carefully selected, effective questionnaire can collect quantitative results. But with so many established UX questionnaires available, it is often difficult to choose a suitable one for a specific project. The task becomes more complex if different UX questionnaires are used and results must be compared. It is essential to understand the relationship between user experience data collected with different questionnaires. [The authors] investigated three common user experience questionnaires, SUS, UMUX-LITE, and UEQ-S, used to evaluate four common products in an online study of 435 participants: Netflix®, PowerPoint® (PPT), Zoom®, and BigBlueButton™ (BBB). In this way, the measured scale scores of the questionnaires could be compared for these products. Results showed SUS and UMUX-LITE scores as nearly identical for all four products. For usability or UX quality, [the researchers] found that the selection of the survey has only a limited impact, but for overall UX quality there were clear differences between SUS, UMUX-LITE, and UEQ-S.”
Lyn Gattis
Privacy in social media friendships with direct supervisors: A psychological contract perspective
Cistulli, M. D., & Snyder, J. L. (2023). International Journal of Business Communication, 60, 403–419. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488419856072
“Social media in modern companies can connect workers with their supervisors in myriad ways via multiple platforms. This study analyzes the perceived relationships between workers and their supervisors using the theoretical framework of psychological contract violation (PCV). The role of social media in the workplace in terms of privacy and trust between workers and their supervisors and workers’ organizational commitment was analyzed. Demographic information, communication channels (platforms), and the source of the social media relationship request were also considered. An online survey of full- and part-time employees yielded a diverse sample of 327 participants. This social media privacy research is consistent with previous literature on e-mail privacy. Both social media privacy and PCV influenced perceptions of (supervisor) trust. Additionally, PCV and trust influenced perceptions of affective organizational commitment. Implications of the results are discussed.”
Katherine Wertz
The user experience of low-techs: From user problems to design principles
Colin, C., & Martin, A. (2023). Journal of User Experience, 18(2), 68–85. [doi: none]
“Our technical culture is characterized by the development of increasingly complex artifacts. In this article, [the authors] introduce low-techs (sometimes termed ‘appropriate technologies’), which are alternative technologies designed to use fewer resources, target priority needs, and aim for a positive social and environmental impact. [The authors] describe their relevance for user experience researchers and practitioners interested in tackling environmental crises, and [they] discuss what actions can be conducted to improve low-techs’ design and dissemination. Finally, from a survey of 396 participants, [they] derived 14 general user experience problems for low-techs to propose seven corresponding design principles: identify priority needs to derive necessary functionality, strike the right balance between empowerment and assistance, pay attention to non-functional features, facilitate discoverability, make artifacts and operation transparent, develop users’ technical knowledge and skills, and compensate increased material loads and deficits. Practitioners can use these design principles to guide their development of low-techs.”
Lyn Gattis
Writing
Constructing structured content on WordPress: Emerging paradigms in web content management
Carter, D. (2023). Communication Design Quarterly, 11(1), 42–52. https://doi.org/10.1145/3563890.3563894
“Web content management systems (WCMSs) are widely used technologies that, like previous writing tools, shape how people think about and create documents. Despite their influence and ubiquity, however, WCMSs have received exceedingly little attention from scholars interested in social aspects of technology. [The author] begin[s] to address this gap by analyzing the development of WordPress’s content creation experience through the lens of structured content. Based on this analysis, [the author] contribute[s] to ongoing discussions of content management by first suggesting that concepts such as structured content need to be understood as the contingent products of technical lineages and technical and social relationships and by second drawing attention to emerging paradigms of content creation, such as the merging of content creation and arrangement and the conflation of visual and abstract representations of content objects.”
Lyn Gattis
