Channels, Fall 2016

Towne • Æsop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator Page 92 have total control over the plant’s operations. Just as orators at Three Mile Island failed to relate and frame the event successfully, so communicators also relate particulars of events. The rhetoric by which communicators frame events creates meaning. Reviving the Communicator’s Responsibility Since communicators deliberately select how they frame events, they are responsible for their rhetoric. An example of failed rhetoric such as Three Mile Island shows that audiences and orators alike often acknowledge the power of rhetoric when it fails to meet its audiences’ needs. Although communicators may not understand the entirety of a situation, they are responsible for both what they understand and what they choose to communicate. However, since contemporary rhetorical theory distances communicators from the feedback their audiences might give, it also allows them to ignore the latent values of their discourses. Since technical communicators persuade their audiences to act, they must understand their rhetorical contexts. As Aristotle suggests, they cannot accept that what they write has no impact on its larger context. While it may be true that writing itself is amoral, communication always leads to action. If communicators separate their rhetoric from the action it perpetuates, they blindly serve their rhetorical discourses, for better or worse. Since communicators are responsible for what and to whom they write, they succeed or fail to the extent that they understand the values of their discourse communities. The example of Three Mile Island also shows that rhetoric functions as a means to an end, whether communicators explicitly acknowledge that particular end or not. As officials framed the catastrophic event, Farrell and Goodnight (1981) note that they “had specialized ends to serve” (282)—they did not simply communicate information about the possible disaster for the sake of communicating it. Instead, they needed to reassure civil officials as well as the public that they had contained the situation. However, as they communicated, they operated under the pragmatist ideas that they had tacitly accepted. They used their rhetoric to serve technology and progress rather than their audience. Thus, they attempted to hide information as it emerged. Since technical communicators operate in the world of mathematics and science more and more, they cannot fail to acknowledge the values of their discourses. Because technical communicators do not employ linguistically neutral rhetoric, they ultimately perpetuate social action. As they articulate meaning, they become equal parts of larger power systems (Hughes 2002; Slack, Miller, and Doak 2004). Just as Æsop’s trumpeter aligned himself with a particular army, so they work in particular discourses. Technical communicators must understand for whom they write since they are responsible for what they communicate. Otherwise, they become like Æsop’s trumpeter—persuaders who align themselves with wrongdoers and who are equally at fault. Technical communicators are responsible for how they communicate and to whom they communicate.