Scott Graham
S. Scott Graham is an associate professor in the Department of Rhetoric & Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also affiliated with the Center for Health Communication, the University of Texas Opioid Response Consortium, and the Health Informatics Research Interest Group. He uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to study communication in bioscience and health policy, with special attention to bioethics, conflicts of interest, and health AI. His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NSF’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Graham is the author of three books (The Doctor & The Algorithm, The Politics of Pain Medicine and Where’s the Rhetoric?) as well as 35 articles, chapters, and essays published in Technical Communication Quarterly, Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, Plos-One, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and other journals. His scholarship has been covered in The New York Times, US News & World Report, Science, Health Day, AI in Health Care, and the Scientific Inquirer.
Phone: 15153716400
Address: Parlin Hall 29
Mail Code: B5500
University of Texas at Austin
Phone: 15153716400
Address: Parlin Hall 29
Mail Code: B5500
University of Texas at Austin
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Papers by Scott Graham
findings with contemporary scholarship in rhetorical stasis theory, Mol’s (2002) construct of multiple ontologies, and Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe’s (2011) “hybrid forums,” we demonstrate that the FDA’s deliberative procedures elides various sources of evidence and the potential multiplicity of definitions for “clinical benefit.” Our findings suggest that while the FDA invited multiple stakeholders to offer testimony, there are ways that the FDA might have more meaningfully incorporated public voices in the deliberative process. We conclude with suggestions for how a true hybrid forum might be deployed.
NCTE Award for Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical or Scientific Communication, 2010
Nell Ann Pickett Award for Best Article in TCQ, 2009
Talks by Scott Graham
To this body of research, our presentation adds an exploration of the case of the L’Aquila Seven—six Italian seismologists and one political official who were sentenced to six years in prison for failing to warn the people of L’Aquila of a possible earthquake. Our analysis will demonstrate the dangerous potential consequences that can arise from the inclusion of lay stakeholders, viz., the incarceration of seismologists for not warning the populace about the unpredictable. We will address recent work in rhetoric which argues for the importance of stasis procedures as one way of managing science policy (Ceccarelli, Walsh, Teston and Graham). We further argue that traditional models of stasis debate which stipulate a procedural progression from fact, to definition, to value contributed strongly to the incarceration of L’Aquila Seven. We further suggest that it is incumbent upon rhetoricians to develop new modes of stasis that extend notions like Latour’s “matters of concern,” i.e., that are not built on a positivist purification of fact and value.
Presentations
Incentivizing Interdisciplinarity: Understanding How Scientists Evaluate Research Opportunities
-Greg D. Wilson, Iowa State University
-S. Scott Graham, University of British Columbia
Recent studies in rhetoric of science (Harris, Wilson and Herndl, Graham and Herndl) document the value of practical exigencies in fostering interdisciplinarity. University scientists historically have been funded from government sources that focus on questions important to a single discipline. A New Biology for the Twenty-First Century foreshadows a shift in priorities toward funding more interdisciplinary projects and questions, but scientists still cling to the historical incentive system. We are working with research administrators to better understand what arguments will persuade university scientists to be more receptive to interdisciplinary research opportunities. This paper seeks to explore the motivations for, and roadblocks to, interdisciplinary collaboration in the wake of A New Biology. We will present the results of an ethnographic study investigating what types of arguments are most persuasive in convincing scientists to pursue collaborative/interdisciplinary research.
A Technological Cornucopoia: Kairos, Food Policy, and the New Biology
-Jordynn M. Jack, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
In his essay, "The Rhetoric of Food," Eivind Jacobsen remarks that "Different definitions of food are associated with specific rhetorical repertoires, and hence different questions, risks, roles and conflicts of interest" (59). Taking this insight as a starting point, Presenter X examines how food functions rhetorically in "A New Biology for the 21st Century." Three primary attitudes toward food are apparent in this text: a utopian attitude, in which abundant food leads to a better world; an attitude of crisis, in which environmental catastrophes, droughts, and famines loom; and an attitude of technological kairos, in which scientific knowledge leads the way toward utopia and away from crisis. Following Jacobsen's argument to look out for risks, roles, and conflicts of interest, I examine how these attitudes towards food shift attention away from issues of access, economics, and gender in global food policy. The report positions science as the mitigating force between crisis and opportunity, the sovereign agent able to intervene engage in what Carolyn Miller calls "technological forecasting." When considered in the context of global food crisis, loss of biodiversity, and multinational food monopolies, the report belies a more contemporary notion of kairos as (in Blake Scott's terms) an attempt to manage an "indeterminate response to distributed, transforming, immeasurable, and, to some extent, uncontrollable global risk."
The Electronic Medical Record as Clinical Gaze
-Christa Teston, University of Idaho
One finding posited by the Committee on a New Biology for the 21st Century is that "information is the fundamental currency of the New Biology" (p. 7). Based on this finding, the Committee recommends the national adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in order to "standardize, digitize, secure, and (make) anonymous" the patient information (p. 76). In The Birth of the Clinic, Foucault (1994) argues that the clinical gaze "is a gaze of the concrete sensibility" and that "all truth is sensible truth" (p. 120). By drawing on relevant scholarship in medical rhetoric and recent debates in medical and scientific fields about what counts as "information," panelist X explores how contemporary information technologies, like EMRs, shift the clinical "gaze" or "glance" toward the electronic or digital construction of the patient.
Toward that end, I report on qualitative data from a long range case study of a local health center's movement away from paper-based medical documentation toward the adoption of EMRs. Data includes observational field notes, interviews with medical professionals, and rhetorical analyses of the center's medical documentation practices.
This study contributes to broader scholarly conversations about the negotiated nature of scientific information (e.g. Ceccarelli 2001; Charney 2003; Keranen 2010) and medical documentation practices (e.g. McCarthy and Gerring 1994; Barton 2004; Segal 2005; Charon 2006). This paper also contributes to the medical community's ongoing debate about the efficiency and effectiveness of EMRs toward the improvement of patient care quality (see the 2011 Archives of Internal Medicine study).
In 2005 Technical Communication Quarterly published an issue devoted reception studies in the rhetoric of science (ROS). As part of this effort, Ceccarelli conducted a reception study of her book Shaping Science. Ceccarelli’s article documents the chilly reception ROS scholarship has received from science and technology studies (STS). She identifies a series of damning reviews of ROS scholarship such as “a flagrant violation of etiquette,” “hotch-potch,” and a “hatchet-job” (257-8). While Ceccarelli identifies many possibilities for this reception, one of particular relevance is her concern over ROS’s relationship with STS scholarship. Echoing Gross, Ceccarelli identifies one primary critique of ROS that comes from the STS community is the suggestion “that literary and rhetorical scholars have no right to comment on science because they have not even mastered the literature” (263).
In order to assess this charge, I conducted a citation analysis of all articles published five ROS-friendly flagship journals—Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Quarterly Journal Speech, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Written Communication. The results of this analysis demonstrate regular and sustained engagement with STS. However, that engagement is limited to a small subset of authors, texts, and publication dates. As such, the results suggest several areas of STS literature that may warrant more attention. Finally, this presentation will also provide valuable data on the presence of ROS in the discipline—including number of publications per journal per year. The presentation will also document a growing shift in emphasis among rhetoricians of science away from physics and biology and towards medicine and the environment.
Extending Speaker 2's argument that ANT is congruent with rhetorical theory (or writing research), Speaker 3 argues that rhetorical theory can enrich ANT. More specifically the third speaker suggests that rhetorical theory’s focus on diachronic mechanisms of agency and change can provide persuasive explanations of the mechanisms of change involved in network formation. In making this argument Speaker 3 will explore a brief case-study in the rhetoric of medicine that demonstrates who enrollment can be understood as a form of arrangement and black-boxing as an iterative process whereby analogy is transformed into metonymy.
findings with contemporary scholarship in rhetorical stasis theory, Mol’s (2002) construct of multiple ontologies, and Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe’s (2011) “hybrid forums,” we demonstrate that the FDA’s deliberative procedures elides various sources of evidence and the potential multiplicity of definitions for “clinical benefit.” Our findings suggest that while the FDA invited multiple stakeholders to offer testimony, there are ways that the FDA might have more meaningfully incorporated public voices in the deliberative process. We conclude with suggestions for how a true hybrid forum might be deployed.
NCTE Award for Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical or Scientific Communication, 2010
Nell Ann Pickett Award for Best Article in TCQ, 2009
To this body of research, our presentation adds an exploration of the case of the L’Aquila Seven—six Italian seismologists and one political official who were sentenced to six years in prison for failing to warn the people of L’Aquila of a possible earthquake. Our analysis will demonstrate the dangerous potential consequences that can arise from the inclusion of lay stakeholders, viz., the incarceration of seismologists for not warning the populace about the unpredictable. We will address recent work in rhetoric which argues for the importance of stasis procedures as one way of managing science policy (Ceccarelli, Walsh, Teston and Graham). We further argue that traditional models of stasis debate which stipulate a procedural progression from fact, to definition, to value contributed strongly to the incarceration of L’Aquila Seven. We further suggest that it is incumbent upon rhetoricians to develop new modes of stasis that extend notions like Latour’s “matters of concern,” i.e., that are not built on a positivist purification of fact and value.
Presentations
Incentivizing Interdisciplinarity: Understanding How Scientists Evaluate Research Opportunities
-Greg D. Wilson, Iowa State University
-S. Scott Graham, University of British Columbia
Recent studies in rhetoric of science (Harris, Wilson and Herndl, Graham and Herndl) document the value of practical exigencies in fostering interdisciplinarity. University scientists historically have been funded from government sources that focus on questions important to a single discipline. A New Biology for the Twenty-First Century foreshadows a shift in priorities toward funding more interdisciplinary projects and questions, but scientists still cling to the historical incentive system. We are working with research administrators to better understand what arguments will persuade university scientists to be more receptive to interdisciplinary research opportunities. This paper seeks to explore the motivations for, and roadblocks to, interdisciplinary collaboration in the wake of A New Biology. We will present the results of an ethnographic study investigating what types of arguments are most persuasive in convincing scientists to pursue collaborative/interdisciplinary research.
A Technological Cornucopoia: Kairos, Food Policy, and the New Biology
-Jordynn M. Jack, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
In his essay, "The Rhetoric of Food," Eivind Jacobsen remarks that "Different definitions of food are associated with specific rhetorical repertoires, and hence different questions, risks, roles and conflicts of interest" (59). Taking this insight as a starting point, Presenter X examines how food functions rhetorically in "A New Biology for the 21st Century." Three primary attitudes toward food are apparent in this text: a utopian attitude, in which abundant food leads to a better world; an attitude of crisis, in which environmental catastrophes, droughts, and famines loom; and an attitude of technological kairos, in which scientific knowledge leads the way toward utopia and away from crisis. Following Jacobsen's argument to look out for risks, roles, and conflicts of interest, I examine how these attitudes towards food shift attention away from issues of access, economics, and gender in global food policy. The report positions science as the mitigating force between crisis and opportunity, the sovereign agent able to intervene engage in what Carolyn Miller calls "technological forecasting." When considered in the context of global food crisis, loss of biodiversity, and multinational food monopolies, the report belies a more contemporary notion of kairos as (in Blake Scott's terms) an attempt to manage an "indeterminate response to distributed, transforming, immeasurable, and, to some extent, uncontrollable global risk."
The Electronic Medical Record as Clinical Gaze
-Christa Teston, University of Idaho
One finding posited by the Committee on a New Biology for the 21st Century is that "information is the fundamental currency of the New Biology" (p. 7). Based on this finding, the Committee recommends the national adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in order to "standardize, digitize, secure, and (make) anonymous" the patient information (p. 76). In The Birth of the Clinic, Foucault (1994) argues that the clinical gaze "is a gaze of the concrete sensibility" and that "all truth is sensible truth" (p. 120). By drawing on relevant scholarship in medical rhetoric and recent debates in medical and scientific fields about what counts as "information," panelist X explores how contemporary information technologies, like EMRs, shift the clinical "gaze" or "glance" toward the electronic or digital construction of the patient.
Toward that end, I report on qualitative data from a long range case study of a local health center's movement away from paper-based medical documentation toward the adoption of EMRs. Data includes observational field notes, interviews with medical professionals, and rhetorical analyses of the center's medical documentation practices.
This study contributes to broader scholarly conversations about the negotiated nature of scientific information (e.g. Ceccarelli 2001; Charney 2003; Keranen 2010) and medical documentation practices (e.g. McCarthy and Gerring 1994; Barton 2004; Segal 2005; Charon 2006). This paper also contributes to the medical community's ongoing debate about the efficiency and effectiveness of EMRs toward the improvement of patient care quality (see the 2011 Archives of Internal Medicine study).
In 2005 Technical Communication Quarterly published an issue devoted reception studies in the rhetoric of science (ROS). As part of this effort, Ceccarelli conducted a reception study of her book Shaping Science. Ceccarelli’s article documents the chilly reception ROS scholarship has received from science and technology studies (STS). She identifies a series of damning reviews of ROS scholarship such as “a flagrant violation of etiquette,” “hotch-potch,” and a “hatchet-job” (257-8). While Ceccarelli identifies many possibilities for this reception, one of particular relevance is her concern over ROS’s relationship with STS scholarship. Echoing Gross, Ceccarelli identifies one primary critique of ROS that comes from the STS community is the suggestion “that literary and rhetorical scholars have no right to comment on science because they have not even mastered the literature” (263).
In order to assess this charge, I conducted a citation analysis of all articles published five ROS-friendly flagship journals—Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Quarterly Journal Speech, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Written Communication. The results of this analysis demonstrate regular and sustained engagement with STS. However, that engagement is limited to a small subset of authors, texts, and publication dates. As such, the results suggest several areas of STS literature that may warrant more attention. Finally, this presentation will also provide valuable data on the presence of ROS in the discipline—including number of publications per journal per year. The presentation will also document a growing shift in emphasis among rhetoricians of science away from physics and biology and towards medicine and the environment.
Extending Speaker 2's argument that ANT is congruent with rhetorical theory (or writing research), Speaker 3 argues that rhetorical theory can enrich ANT. More specifically the third speaker suggests that rhetorical theory’s focus on diachronic mechanisms of agency and change can provide persuasive explanations of the mechanisms of change involved in network formation. In making this argument Speaker 3 will explore a brief case-study in the rhetoric of medicine that demonstrates who enrollment can be understood as a form of arrangement and black-boxing as an iterative process whereby analogy is transformed into metonymy.
Rhetoricians of science and scholars of technical communication may find Latour’s arguments incommensurable with their own. However, more recent work by science and technology scholars like Anne Marie Mol (2002, 2006), John Law (2006), and Andrew Pickering (2010) may provide an approach that would allow for the productive yoking of Latour’s ontological recourse with our representational expertise.
This yoking, or what we heretofore refer to as a “multiple ontologies” approach, posits science as a series of sites of practice wherein different realities—different ontologies—are brought forth. In other words, the specifics of local practice create a world, or ontology, unique to that environment.
As a panel, we will facilitate discussion and debate about the ways that a multiple ontologies approach may be productively incorporated into rhetorics of science and technical communication. Specifically, each panelist will contribute to this conversation with unique explorations of case studies in health and biomedicine. Toward that end, speaker 1 will explore debates over conflicting ontologies in pain medicine, while speaker 2 will investigate the relevance of a multiple ontologies approach for theoretical conflicts in biomedical informatics. Finally, speaker 3 will propose a methodological approach for studying multiple ontologies in medical workplace environments where deliberative decision-making takes place.