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This article introduces a simple mapping tool called Grassroots, a software product from a longitudinal study examining the use of information communication technologies and knowledge work in communities. Grassroots is an asset-based mapping tool made possible by the Web 2.0 movement, a movement which allows for the creation of more adaptable inter...
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The emergence of Web 2.0 has drastically altered the way users perceive the Internet, by improving information sharing, collaboration and interoperability. Micro-blogging is one of the most popular Web 2.0 applications and related services, like Twitter, have evolved into a practical means for sharing opinions on almost all aspects of everyday life...
Citations
... Of particular relevance to this project, a critical cartographic literacy is important in addressing misinformation in digital writing environments (Muehlenhaus, 2014) and communicating visual risk (Griffin, 2020;Santee, 2022). Longstanding work in critical cartography and writing studies (Barton & Barton, 1993;Diehl et al., 2008;Harley, n.d.;Propen, 2007) have illustrated how "the rhetorical nature of maps" can help foster an awareness of the ways "maps are enmeshed in ideology and always selective in what they include and exclude" (Santee, 2022). The communication design of maps becomes an important means to understand how writing is a place-making action (Brooke & McIntosh, 2007;Lesh & Smith, 2022;Li, 2020) that directly interfaces with digital literacy (Frith, 2015;Greene, 2023;Rivers, 2016;Schmidt, 2011) to tell or interrogate an environmental story. ...
This article reports on lessons learned from the first phase of an ongoing multimodal project aimed at promoting digital and environmental literacy in concert with access and accessibility on our university's main campus. We discuss an emerging, student-led locative media project, built to increase engagement with the North Woods, an approximately 300 acre parcel of unmanaged forests and wetlands on the north part of our campus. By layering together deep mapping and accessibility, this project intervenes in the binaries between art and science and nature and technology, with a strong focus on how digital, environmental, and community literacy can contribute to more accessible experiences.
... More specifically for writing instructors, inclusion of a Map Composition assignment can promote cartographic literacy by foregrounding the rhetorical nature of maps, or the ways that maps are enmeshed in ideology and always selective in what they include and exclude (Barton & Barton, 1993;Diehl et al., 2008;Harley, 1997Harley, /2001Propen, 2007). Inclusion of a map assignment also enables enactment of Sánchez's (2016) call to reconceptualize writing as "consequential mark-making" as a step toward decolonizing writing instruction by "delinking it from the ideological, epistemological, and rhetorical baggage that burdens its study" (p. ...
This article introduces a flexible and adaptable Map Composition assignment to promote cartographic literacy. With applications to composition and writing across the curriculum, this assignment promotes students’ awareness of the rhetorical nature of maps, which is important as maps inform and influence public discourse on wide-ranging issues. Student work shows how composing a map can lead them toward improved rhetorical awareness, cartographic literacy, and engagement with place-based civic issues. The article acknowledges limitations of teaching maps in writing classes and concludes with discussion of how this assignment can be adapted to a range of courses to promote cartographic literacy in support of broader literacies and civic engagement.
... These worries surface, for instance, in collective responses to technologies such as books, televisions, portable boom boxes, and Walkmans (Gergen, 2002;Hampton & Gupta, 2008;Meyrowitz, 1985). While cultural critiques associating global capitalism with the homogenization of public space remain compelling (Dickinson, 2002;Ellis, 2002;Wood, 2009), rhetoric and communication scholars have traced how individuals and groups collectively annotate and transform shared places through online social software applications (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012;Diehl et al., 2008;Frith, 2015;Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011;Rice, 2012;Varnelis & Friedburg, 2008), experiencing the world in hybrid spaces where contact is mediated both electronically and in person. Online applications support forms of connection that may not bound the same kinds of geographically rooted communities associated with public sphere theory but do create relationships and the potential for networked information exchange among neighbors and co-inhabitants. ...
... The argument for the inclusion of these approaches in our methodological repertoires is not new. Grabill (2001), Simmons (2007), Blythe, et al. (2008), and Diehl, et al. (2010) have argued that they can be useful complements to our methodological repertoires. Asset-mapping is perhaps the most prevalent example of a tool technical communicators have adapted for advocacy. ...
... No matter the tool, the benefits of mapping come from its potential as a rhetorical act. Diehl, et al. (2010) noted that mapping allows "the map's writer to socially construct a viewpoint: a way of looking at a space selectively" (p. 417). ...
... Community asset mapping has employed a variety of methods to achieve its outcomes, not all of which are compatible with sustainable and participatory community development thinking (Graham et al., 2011; Kramer, et al., 2012; Lightfoot, McCleary and Lum, 2014). Different tools have also been developed to map communities from external positions, on behalf of or with communities, such as Diehl et al.'s (2008) software tool for community knowledge development. Again, of central importance in the use of technologies are the moral and politicophilosophical positions of the researchers. ...
Community asset mapping is widely employed in a diverse range of community development programmes, including work with indigenous
groups. Here we discuss the outcome of a participatory asset mapping training programme we were asked to deliver for social
and community work students and academics at a university in Peninsular Malaysia. The attendees were planning imminent intervention
work with the indigenous Orang Asli communities of Tasik Chini, Pahang, Malaysia, with whom we were undertaking our own separate
research at the time. The underpinning philosophy and approach of participatory asset mapping is discussed in terms of its
use in the community context. A self-reflexive analysis of research relationships and trainer responsibilities is explored
in this discursive, conceptual article.
This article reports on lessons learned from the first phase of an ongoing multimodal project aimed at promoting digital and environmental literacy in concert with access and accessibility on our university's main campus. We discuss an emerging, student-led locative media project, built to increase engagement with the North Woods, an approximately 300 acre parcel of unmanaged forests and wetlands on the north part of our campus. By layering together deep mapping and accessibility, this project intervenes in the binaries between art and science and nature and technology, with a strong focus on how digital, environmental, and community literacy can contribute to more accessible experiences.
Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) scholars and practitioners (TPCers) see a need to intervene in a range of complex problems. Yet scholars such as Leah Ceccarelli and Lauren Cagle have noted a gap between scholarly research findings and policy changes. To address this gap, I theorize a strategic grounding framework, consisting of multiple, linked tactics that over time enable TPCers to make a case to gain a seat at the table to shape policy. I theorize this framework through a case study of Stephen J. Pyne, founder of the subfield of Fire History, who influenced national and global fire management policy. I examine Pyne's professional papers, housed in the Stephen J. Pyne Papers Collection at the Arizona State University Archives. The framework offers TPCers a series of tactics that position TPCers as change makers as they place their expertise to shape policy that addresses complex problems.
Drawing on fieldwork conducted with the designers of and participants in a new fellowship program to connect globally distributed grassroots leaders, this article defines a core set of communication-design practices that support emerging collectives and projects. The three practices detailed – creating a script, building a platform, and inventing protocols to document activity – can be understood as part of an “art of assembly” that is yet to be fully and systematically articulated.
Instruction in cartographic or map literacy in technical communication courses can support pedagogies promoting social change. Students must develop an ability to read, understand, interpret, use, and critique maps in technical communication contexts. This article argues that attention to cartographic literacy can build on existing visual literacies to promote critical understanding of how to use and create maps that engage with issues related to social change. A description of a sample assignment is included to introduce cartographic literacy in undergraduate technical communication courses. Student map examples support the conclusion that students benefit from instruction in cartographic literacy and that cartographic literacy can be an important component of technical communication pedagogies that work toward social justice.
