Planned Obsolescence as a Rhetorical ProblemShannon MaddenUniversity of Oklahomasmadden1.wordpress.com

Materialist Circuitry: Digital Writing Technology, Planned Obsolescence, and Environmental Impact (2015)

Planned obsolescence is a problem for writing studies

Obsolescence as an analytical lens digital device design ecocomposition theory the university

Materialist Circuitry: Digital Writing Technology, Planned Obsolescence, and Environmental Impact (2015)

Studying obsolescence helps us see how writing practices change over time

Studying obsolescence also directs our attention to where our tools circulate when they are not in our hands

Fitzpatrick, Planned Obsolescence (2011) We in the humanities, and in the academy more broadly, face what is less a material obsolescence than an institutional one; we are entrenched in systems that no longer serve our needs. (Fitzpatrick, 2011, p. 13)

Fitzpatrick, Planned Obsolescence (2011) rethink the role of sole

authorship in tenure practices (p. 52)

reimagine the scholarly press as a service unit rather than a revenue center (p. 186)

version our scholarship & engage each other in open peer review (p. 70)

Obsolescence is a rhetoric

a set of persuasive patterns that induce cooperation (Burke, 1950, p. 41)

communication that attempts to coordinate social action (Hauser, 1986, p. 2)

Obsolesence is a set of symbolic patterns that gets built into the design of our digital tools.

photo Apple Inc.

Are you human?

Does it matter?

Close enough, Id say.

What do you think?

photo Apple Inc.

25% of vacuums60% of stereos90% of computers

still work when they get junked

Design encourages us to conceptualize the device in terms of its functionality and to look past its status as material hardware

Suicide nets at Foxconn

photo: Thomas Leesource: Wired

photo: BBCFoxconn explosion May 2011

e-waste workers in Guiyu, China

photo: Greenpeace

Footbridge made of CRT monitorsAgbogbloshie, Ghana

photo: Kevin McElvaney

Foxconn

photo: NBC News

/

conflict resources

photo: NY Times

Margin Point cloud-based solutions

Superfunds in Silicon Valley

map source: The Atlantic

students at Duke UniversityiPod initiative, 2008photo: Duke Magazine

Research questions

Why do university tech initiatives get discontinued?

Who decides on such changes? What are the implications for students,

teachers, & labor? Where does the waste go and what are the

material consequences?

Tech vending machine

Bizzell Memorial LibraryUniversity of Oklahoma

conflict minerals in the DRCphoto: greenamerica.org