[ATTW-L] ATTW 2025 CFP (12/31/2024 deadline)
ATTW Communications
communications at attw.org
Tue Oct 22 02:04:38 UTC 2024
*Technical and Professional Communication in the Global Election Supercycle*
*Ryan Cheek, Ph.D.* <https://sites.mst.edu/ryancheek/>* (Missouri S&T)
& **Isidore
Dorpenyo, Ph.D. * <https://english.gmu.edu/people/idorpeny>*(George Mason
University)*
By the end of 2024, approximately 3.7 billion people–about half the world’s
population–in as many as 72 countries across five continents will have
experienced a national election (United Nations Development Program, 2024
<https://www.undp.org/super-year-elections>). High-stakes races in the
United States, Taiwan, Russia, Ghana, India, and many more nations arguably
make 2024 the most consequential global election cycle in modern history (Ewe,
2023 <https://time.com/6550920/world-elections-2024/>; Plackett, 2024
<https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01712-2>). Different types of
technologies were deployed to manage many elections during the pandemic (Mumuni
et al, 2024 <https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-42771-8>);
and in several contexts, 2024 is the first major wave of elections after a
global health catastrophe–combining “traditional” campaign and election
strategies with new and old technologies. National elections in the U.S.
have taken an outsized share of media attention, where the outcome has the
potential to determine geopolitical order for decades to come (Darnal et
al., 2024
<https://www.stimson.org/2024/the-impact-of-the-us-presidential-election-on-the-future-of-the-international-order/>;
Kay, 2024 <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67949560>). However,
billions of folks outside the U.S. have voted or will vote for new
parliaments, old dictators, and fresh leaders in the most technologically
generated, facilitated, and mediated elections in human history.
Results on every continent will have both regional and global ramifications
(John & Sen, 2024
<https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-ELECTIONS2024/gdvzmkejkpw/>; Young,
2024
<https://www.henleyglobal.com/publications/centi-millionaire-report-2024/election-supercycle-underpins-millionaire-migration-trends>).
Earlier this year, the 2024 election supercycle delivered trans-continental
far-right election gains in the European Union and power-shifting
parliamentary snap contests in the United Kingdom and France. Some
countries will have an opportunity to make firsts, like the possibility
that the U.S. and Namibia will join Mexico this year in electing women for
the first time to their respective presidencies; others are bellwethers in
the global conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, such as in
Georgia, Moldova, Senegal, and Tunisia. Some elections will be shocking,
such as the first far right victory in a German state since World War II,
while others *may or may not *occur on the heels of recent coups such as in
Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali.
The evolution of TPC as a discipline has taken many turns to get from an
understanding of technical writing as objective and instrumental to
embracing technical communication as a vehicle for driving social change.
Miller’s (1979 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/375964>) humanistic perspective
gave scholars a permission structure and the encouragement to break free
from instrumentalist constraints and foci that too often come at the
expense of the people behind the documents. From the humanistic perspective
came the cultural turn (Agboka, 2012
<https://doi.org/10.2190/TW.42.2.e>; Longo,
1998 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10572259809364617>; Longo, 2000
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/Spurious_Coin/ea8Hd6REUVIC?hl=en&gbpv=0>;
Scott, Longo, & Wills, 1993
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/Critical_Power_Tools/rRJQELy1-sQC?hl=en&gbpv=0>;
Scott & Longo, 2006 <https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427625tcq1501_2>),
empowering TPC scholars to investigate the field’s contributions to violent
systems of kyriarchal oppression (Fiorenza, 2021, p. 45
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/Congress_of_Wo_men/wEcmEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0>
).
TPC has always been about more than critique, which is why technical
communication cultural critics have transitioned into the social justice
turn (Agboka, 2013
<https://www.academia.edu/download/87723633/1-1-full1.pdf#page=35>; Agboka,
2014 <https://doi.org/10.2190/TW.44.3.e>; Jones, 2016
<https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2016.1224655>; Walton, Moore, & Jones,
2019 <https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429198748>; Walton & Agboka, 2021
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/Equipping_Technical_Communicators_for_So/2CEsEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0>).
The social justice turn has been used by TPC scholars to explore and make
contributions to political topics such as abortion (Frost, 2016
<https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651915602295>), sex work (Itchuaqiyaq,
Edenfield, & Grant-Davie, 2022 <https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519211044190>),
environmental policy (Sackey, 2018
<https://doi.org/10.7330/9781607327585.c006>), and immigration (Veeramoothoo,
2022 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281620953377>). Politically oriented
scholarship in TPC has continued to proliferate over the last decade,
including a recent trend of TPC scholars investigating and addressing
liberal democratic themes of citizenship, civic/public engagement, and
elections.
In the wake of the 2016 ATTW conference: Citizenship and Advocacy in
Technical Communication, co-chairs Godwin Agboka and Natalia Matveeva
called on the field to “search for better ways to promote active
citizenship beyond the traditional classroom to respond to various social,
economic, and environmental issues” (Agboka & Matveeva, 2016, para. 3
<https://attwblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/from-the-conference-co-chairs/>).
Responding to this call, there has been an upsurge in TPC research on the
practice of politics and the use of electoral technology (Cheek, 2021
<https://doi.org/10.1145/3431932.3431933>; Dorpenyo & Agboka, 2018
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/27301552>; Dorpenyo, 2024
<https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519231199471>; Jones & Williams, 2018
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/27301555>; Sano-Franchini, 2018
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/27301556>; Sánchez, 2022
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/27301554>). We may not consider ourselves
“politicians” in the traditional sense, but TPC scholars have effectively
demonstrated that political decisions and power are both communicated
through and constituted by technical rhetorics, practices, and pedagogies.
The 2025 ATTW hybrid conference will take place on* June 14-15, 2025*
*virtually
online and in person at Missouri University of Science and Technology*. We
invite 500-word (exclusive of references) abstracts proposing either a
virtual or an in-person presentation examining technical communication in
the global election supercycle of 2024 and its aftermath. As participatory
citizens in democracies, technical communicators have a vital
responsibility to ensure elections and their processes are equitable and
understandable for all (Cheek, 2023
<https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2079726>; Dorpenyo, 2016
<https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/etdr/125>; Whitney, 2013
<https://doi.org/10.2190/TW.43.4.f>). Living up to that responsibility has
become much more difficult in a world flooded by artificial
intelligence-boosted mis/disinformation campaigns paired with immense data
surveillance technologies. We welcome submissions that critically analyze
the roles played by technologies, genres, and information processes in
shaping democratic discourse, voter participation, electoral integrity,
political messaging, and more. Employing Rude’s (2009)
<https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651908329562> overlapping domains of TPC
research questions (disciplinarity, pedagogy, practice, and social change),
we offer the following research questions as starting points for discussion:
Disciplinarity
“Disciplinarity: How shall we know ourselves? What are our definitions,
history, status, possible future, and research methods?” (Rude, 2009, p.
176)
- What role does/can technical communication play in combating
misinformation and disinformation during elections?
- What is the history of technical and professional communication (TPC)
in electoral politics?
- How has the role of technical and professional communicators in
elections of fragile democracies in countries like South Africa and
Pakistan evolved?
- How should technical communication define its future role in
fast-digitizing democracies such as Mexico and Rwanda?
- What technical communication methods were employed in the 2024
elections?
- What is the role of technical communication in a politically polarized
society?
- What can technical communication scholars learn from interdisciplinary
research on political technology and election systems in cross-border
electoral frameworks like the European Union (EU) parliamentary and African
Union Commission elections?
- When and where does technical communication make an impact on the
election process?
- How is technical communication used in the electoral processes of
countries with authoritarian leaders?
- What contributions could technical communication research make to
promoting electoral integrity and transparency in regions facing political
unrest, such as Ethiopia and Mozambique?
Pedagogy
“Pedagogy: What should be the content of our courses and curriculum? How
shall we teach students best practices, history, and possibilities? How
shall we negotiate competing claims for content and pedagogical methods and
compete for academic resources?” (Rude, 2009, p. 176)
- Why should technical communication students care about the processes
and results of the 2024 elections?
- What instructional materials best prepare students for careers in
political technical communication in countries with rapidly evolving
election technology, such as India and South Korea?
- What strategies can help us teach politically engaged citizenship?
- How can TPC educators incorporate lessons learned from the 2024
elections?
- What role does/should TPC play in teaching civic literacy,
responsibility, and engagement?
- What are effective classroom activities that integrate lessons from
diverse electoral technologies and challenges in countries like El Salvador
and Ghana to teach global technical communication?
- What are effective methods for teaching students about the ethical
implications of electoral technologies in countries with contested election
results?
- How can instructors encourage students to think about the global
implications of TPC practices in the electoral systems of democracies like
the U.S. and autocratic regimes like the Russian Federation?
- How can students be taught to critically analyze election-related
misinformation and design inoculation strategies in countries facing
significant political polarization?
- What pedagogical strategies are most effective for teaching students
about the intersection of social justice, electoral technology, and
political communication in countries with high social inequality, like
South Africa and Mexico?
Practice
“Practice: How should texts be constructed to work effectively and
ethically? What design practices include international users and users with
disabilities? What are best practices of text development and design? How
can content be managed for reuse?” (Rude, 2009, p. 176)
- What technical communication practices can be identified in the 2024
elections?
- How did ballot design in different countries contribute to the
enfranchisement or disenfranchisement of people with disabilities?
- Has the global trend toward digital ballots and online voting
negatively impacted public perception of and trust in elections?
- What are the ethical implications of generative AI in political
communication?
- How might the study of electoral communication during elections in the
European Union and India, where multiple languages and cultural contexts
are involved, inform the translation practices of technical communicators?
- Where was content management and reuse best used in 2024 political
campaigns?
- How does technical rhetoric influence a voter’s understanding of
political campaign issues?
- What are the differences and similarities between the design of
political websites in X country’s national elections vs. Y countries
national elections?
- How can TPC practices enhance transparency and fairness in electoral
processes in emerging democracies?
- In what ways can technical communicators facilitate dialogue and
understanding between polarized political groups?
Social Change
“Social Change: How do texts function as agents of knowledge-making,
action, and change?” (Rude, 2009, p. 176)
- What TPC interventions are the most effective for voter education and
outreach?
- How can TPC strategies and techniques combat misinformation and
restore public trust in elections?
- How do gender and race influence official and unofficial electoral
communications?
- What TPC interventions are the most effective for enhancing electoral
integrity and public trust in electoral outcomes?
- In what ways can TPC support the inclusion of traditionally
disenfranchised and underrepresented groups in democratic governance?
- How might technical communicators aid in designing and implementing
accessible election technologies for people with disabilities?
- How do texts mediate voter understanding of complex policy issues
during election campaigns in countries with diverse electorates?
- What are TPC strategies that could address voter suppression tactics
in countries with a history of electoral violence and intimidation like the
United States?
- How are digital platforms and social media shaping voter perceptions
and behaviors in global elections?
- How can technical communicators aid in expanding ballot access for
marginalized and disenfranchised populations?
*Please submit your abstracts to **attwcon at gmail.com* <attwcon at gmail.com>*
by December 31st, 2024*. Teachers, scholars, researchers, and practitioners
working at secondary schools, community two-year colleges, public and
private universities, for-profit corporations, non-profit organizations,
and government agencies are encouraged to submit. All submissions that are
received by the deadline will be fully considered for inclusion in the
conference whether or not the submission is connected to the conference
theme. *For planning purposes and to take full advantage of the virtual
medium, authors must specify if they intend to present online or in-person
at the time of submission*. We expect to return decisions to authors by
February 15th and publish a draft of the schedule by March 15th. If you
have any questions, please reach out to co-conference Chair and site host
Dr. Ryan Cheek (ryancheek at mst.edu), ATTW Vice President and co-conference
Chair Dr. Isidore Dorpenyo (idorpenyo at gmu.edu), or ATTW President Dr. Laura
Gonzales (gonzalesl at ufl.edu).
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