[Sigia-l] Call for Papers

[Sapienza, Filipp]

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS - Submission Deadline May 1, 2006

Culture, Communication, & Cyberspace: Rethinking Technical Communication
for International Online Environments

Edited by Kirk St.Amant (Texas Tech University) and Filipp Sapienza
(University of Colorado at Denver)

The increasingly global nature of the World Wide Web presents new
challenges and opportunities for technical communicators who must 

*	Develop content and navigation for culturally diverse users
*	Use online media to interact with clients or colleagues (e.g.,
SMEs) from other cultures and in other nations
*	Provide online instruction or web-based training to persons
located in other countries

Within these situations, cultural communication expectations and factors
of online media affect the success with which technical communicators
deliver content or interact with others.  As international Internet
access grows, the online activities of technical communicators will only
become more international and intercultural in nature.  

One challenge technical communicators face is the way that web
communicators write for different cultural audiences. A common practice
is to adapt content and navigation for culturally diverse audiences.
However, in an era of increasing interchange among culturally different
groups, what does being culturally diverse mean on the Internet? In an
era of increased transnationalism, what do people of poly-cultural
heritage expect in the way of culturally sensitive and shared Internet
communication? Some users may require localized content, while others
may prefer to utilize a pre-existing set of global literacies for web
interaction. Should translation therefore be the first advice for web
communicators?  

A second challenge is how cultural and linguistic factors affect
interactions in international online exchanges.  How, for example, do
the structures of different online media (e.g., email, chat rooms,
bulletin boards, web pages) affect cross-cultural discourse?  Do
successful online interactions across cultures involve or require more
than just the use of a common language? In which respects does the
technological infrastructure of online media give shape to the cultures
that interact on them? Additionally, what differences in technology
standards, government restrictions, and business practices affect how
technical communicators use online media in international exchanges?

Finally, should teaching and training in technical communication be
modified to address the increasingly international nature of online
interactions? If so, what steps should individual teachers/trainers or
overall educational and training organizations take to address this
topic effectively? How might online classes serve as a mechanism for
exploring such interactions and providing valuable learning experiences
in culture and communication?

The editors of Culture, Communication, and Cyberspace: Rethinking
Technical Communication for International Online Environments wish to
address these questions, and others, through chapters that explore the
different aspects of international online communication. The editors are
interested in a range of methodological approaches that may include (but
are not limited to): case studies, empirical studies of international
web use, usability studies, composition practices, writing practices,
pedagogical practices. They are also interested in chapters that examine
how business trends, such as international outsourcing, content
management, and the use of open source software (OSS), are affecting and
could change practices in the field of technical communication as
related to online cross-cultural interactions.   

Articles might consider current scholarly work on international web
communication from a variety of fields including technical
communication, educational technology, information architecture,
computers and composition, rhetoric, psychology, and usability
engineering.

Submission Procedure
Prospective authors are invited to submit chapter proposals of 200-500
words on or before May 1, 2006.  In their proposal, prospective authors
should clearly explain the purpose and the contents of their proposed
chapter.

Please send inquiries or submit material electronically (as Rich
Text/.rtf or Microsoft Word .doc files) to both editors at Kirk St.Amant
(email: kirk.st-amant at ttu.edu) and Filipp Sapienza (email:
Filipp.Sapienza at cudenver.edu)

Authors will be notified of the status of their proposal and sent
chapter organization guidelines by May 15, 2006.  Drafts of chapters
will be due by October 15, 2006.