I am not sure if I am any further than I was in class last week. In fact, since I have been reading articles about my topic, I think I am more excited about the project, but frustrated since I have pinned down exactly what I want to do. Mostly my problem is that I come up with a great topic for my literacy class (since I want to do something similar) but it has nothing to do with technology - or I come up with a great topic for technology that has nothing to do with anything writing related. Needless to say I am floating above my landing -- hoping to land soon -- with about 20 research questions for my other class. Heavy sigh.
Here is what I am working with/thinking about. I am interested in the assumptions producers of reproductive health information have about the women who access that information. From the research I have done, on Kent's campus, women have 3 face-to-face points of contact for information: Women's Resource Center, Women's Health Clinic and Planned Parenthood. And then, whatever they find online (with all 3 F2F points of contact having websites and links to other pages). Each location has a slightly different mission, and I am interested in the assumptions these centers make. I want to look at the print material in the centers and the information online (where those from outside of the university could find and use). I was thinking of limiting the information I look at to birth control and pregnancy, since reproductive health is broad. So, I guess my question would be something like: What assumptions do women's health centers make, when producing written information, about their users online and in print?
Thoughts? Workable? Back to the drawing board?
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6 comments:
I think your project seems very interesting and it deals with an important issue.
I am curious about what type of lens you might use when evaluating the print and online sources to uncover "assumptions" made by the texts' producers. I imagine there are lots of possibilities, from neo-Aristotelian approaches, to Toulmin, to something else entirely. Toulmin and his argument structure approach came to my mind as one possibility, since he has a lot of discussion about warrants.
But, I guess before choosing an analytical lens, it might possibly be useful to make your definition of "assumptions" more explicit.
If you eventually continued the study outside of the documents themselves, interviews of text producers would also be potentially fascinating.
Here's another question for you, which comes from thinking about Deborah Brandt's work. Are the texts produced by the people at these particular centers, or do they come from somewhere else? Tracing their sponsorship might provide another angle in the study.
Anyway, just some initial thoughts. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your work as the semester progresses! :)
I agree with Beth that literacy sponsorship, as defined by Deborah Brandt, would be a very useful tool for you to frame your study. As I was reading your post, Brandt popped into my mind, too. As far as working your project into the writing technologies course, you might consider how writing technologies--as literacy sponsors-- constrain the kinds of information that women read. It seems like various centers use different kinds of writing technologies to publish information. So, you might ask whether certain kinds of technologies are better or worse at providing women with access to the information they need. I'm not sure if this helps...
You have now entered my circular thinking. I was also thinking about Brandt and literacy sponsors - slightly holding off on it since I was thinking of using that for my literacy class. I was thinking of going to different planned parenthoods in different communities (or different universities in ohio) - still playing around with it. But, yes.
Looking at what technologies provide better information for women is a good idea. I would like to see if I could work that in.
All of this brainstorming before my morning coffee on a Monday! Shame on me. Thanks so much for your suggestions and comments. They are really helpful!
Niki,
I think you will have to narrow your RQ to one specific site. WHen I was looking at issues of agency in discourses of childbirth, I found it useful to look at pregancy magazines to see how agency was being framed within the the discourse. I also looked at a couple of brochures from my ob/gyn. There are certainly a lot of books published also on contemporary practicers of childbith--and I'm sure there are about reproductive health. I can get you a copy of a bibliography I composed when I was looking at such issues. I do think that you will have to narrow to either birth control or pregnancy, though.
Something else to look at is the visual rhetoric that accompanies the text. See Fairclough or Gunther Kress for an idea how to analyze such rhetoric.
BP
BP
Nikki, I'm having the same problem with thinking about writing technologies specifically. I've finally decided to look at different advertisement strategies as writing technologies. I found a really interested Youtube video about magnum condoms (see my post below). I wonder what you could find about writing technology users like those who use Youtube. Specifically, how they use the technology to participate in the discourse. Ok, now that I’ve got to the second part of your post and after just talking with you this does not seem to be your focus, though it may be a nice addition (?). After finishing your post, I agree with Barbara that you’ll want to limit the focus to birth control or pregnancy. I think it’s really interesting to look at Kent’s three points of contact. I wonder how students get information about these three sites. Brian recommended J. Blake Scott’s _Risky Rhetoric_ to me about HIV testing talking about how AIDS organizations have used a rhetoric of risk that skews an accurate understanding of testing. This might be useful in understanding how organizations communicate ideas about birth control or pregnancy, or even a look at his Works Cited might be helpful in terms of writing studies research and sexual health research. I’ve ordered it from OhioLink, so I’ll let you know when it comes in.
Still having trouble posting on my own, so I'm gonna post to Nikki here for my main response this time. Thanks for letting me use this space!
I’d like to use this space just to get my ideas together for the paper. I’ve become interested in sexual health literacy. I’d like to borrow Gee’s idea of Discourse to understand sexual health literacy as a way of being sexually active in a healthy way. How I plan to frame this as a technology question is that I want to consider who sponsors sexual health literacy, or really what sponsors have the most contact with men and women participating in sexual health Discourse. The condom is a technology without which one would not be in the Discourse. That is to say that understanding how to purchase, use, and dispose of condoms is essential to sexual health Discourse. Now condoms are certainly not writing technologies. Although I did toy with the idea (a stretch) that using condoms is an anti-writing technology for fertile heterosexual couples in that it prevents the writing (or re-writing) of DNA in the sperm and the ovum. Ok, yes, a big stretch.
In any case I was interested in Gitelman’s ideas about how records were packaged. It brought to mind the ways that condoms are marketed. There are a variety of condoms that are extra large. Now, there are some men who do need such condoms; however, there are far more who buy them that do not need them. This brought me to Bijker’s notion of symmetry and the “Macho Bike” and the “Safety Bike.” The advertising, through the package, commercials, and other media, appeal to a masculinist (Macho) ideal of penis size, where inches are the barometer of masculinity. Here’s where the writing technology comes in—the package, commercials, and other media (including the Youtube post I found of a woman demanding that her man wear a Trojan Magnum (extra large) condom and a commercial playing on tropes of masculinity).
I’d like this to be the focus of my project—my unit of analysis?—these practices of writing surround extra large condoms. The question I hope to answer from these technologies is this: “How do these writing technologies sponsor sexual health literacy / Discourse?” Is this really my research question? Let’s talk it out a bit more. There is a strong risk with men who wear extra large condoms who do not need them. The risk is that the condom slips off and is, therefore, rendered ineffective to its intended purpose in a sexual health Discourse. It is, borrowing the social science perspective of technology, not a “working” technology for men whose penises are not the required length. However, the men use the technology to demonstrate their masculinity, so in that sense—to this relevant social group—the technology is “working.” Despite their understanding of the working technology, there is still the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections as well as pregnancy in heterosexual couples. In this sense the extra large condom is part of the sexual health Discourse and not part of it. It complicates the Discourse itself by seeming to be part of it (it is a condom and, therefore, can be used for prevention) and also by not being part of it (in its use among individuals who do not require them). So, I think I’ve come to a more specific / interesting question: “How do the literate technological practices concerning extra large condoms complicate sexual health Discourse (for men who use XL condoms)?”
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