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The Communicative Work of Organizations in Shaping Argumentative Realities

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Abstract

It is argued here that large-scale organization and networked computing enable new divisions of communicative work aimed at shaping the content, direction, and outcomes of societal conversations. The challenge for argumentation theory and practice lies in attending to these new divisions of communicative work in constituting contemporary argumentative realities. Goffman’s conceptualization of participation frameworks and production formats are applied to articulate the communicative work of organizations afforded by networked computing that invents and innovates argument in all of its senses—as product, process, and procedure. Communicative work, however, may be scaffolding argumentative contexts and practices that are quite different than what has constituted past argumentative realities. The computerization of argument happens as organizations invent and innovate argument practice relative to the demands and opportunities of interorganizational communication. The cases and examples examined here suggest that argument practice is evolving around the logic of conversation and the principle of personalization. The analysis challenges argumentation theory to seriously engage with the construction of communicative contexts and the realization of ideas about disagreement management in organizational practice and information infrastructures. Directions for integrating insights from a design perspective on argument with insights from organizational and information systems theory are proposed for coming to terms with an era of large-scale organization and computerization, in particular the evolution of argument practice, the inscription of argument in the built environment, and the absorption of socio-cultural argument practices by organizations and computation.

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Notes

  1. “Societal conversations” is a phrase used here as a generic reference to the wide variety of conversations in society at different scales, from interpersonal to communities, and across varieties of topics, from mundane to high-stakes matters, and in a variety of formats, from informal to formal.

  2. Grice’s (1989) formulation is typically associated with the phrase “the logic of conversation.” While of some general relevance here, it is not explored. Goffman (1981) clearly conveys a sociological sense of conversational logic in that the interaction order involves expectations, obligations, and commitments to be worked out and that people devise means for doing so. These means are often not random but tailored and organized relative to the demands of the interaction order and other actors. It is this sense that frames a way of thinking about mediated interaction on different scales.

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  1. School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA

    Mark Aakhus

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Aakhus, M. The Communicative Work of Organizations in Shaping Argumentative Realities. Philos. Technol. 30, 191–208 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0224-4

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