Writing Postindustrial Places ― Technoculture Amid the Cornfields

Exploring the relationship between postindustrial writing and developments in energy production, manufacturing, and agriculture, Michael J. Salvo shows how technological and industrial innovation relies on communicative and organizational suppleness. The postindustrial technical communicator, Salvo argues, empowers a wide variety of sites to take advantage of the native talents and traditions that contribute to powerful, globally competitive hybrids. Thus, the technical communicator is responsible for articulating opportunities that link resources with needs, as when spent grain becomes livestock feed or finished automobiles are re-manufactured to meet the transportation needs of differently abled drivers. Salvoa€?s main focus is on the ways in which digital technologies have enabled individuals and societies to reinterpret and reimagine their relationship with the world and its communities, in order to gain a better understanding of how work is managed and represented. He accomplishes this through a series of representative case studies that demonstrate the ways in which communicators negotiate the complex relationships among stakeholders, makers, investors, and taxpayers. His book is itself a supple articulation of the opportunities and pitfalls that come with great change.

Michael J. Salvo is Associate Professor of English and Director of Professional Writing at Purdue University.