creator Angderson, Charise advisor Hemphill, Libby The identity of the interdisciplinary field of technical communication continues to be debated. For the last decade of so scholars have argued for the need to emphasize new and emerging technologies to be integrated in technical communication curricula and research. This thesis examines how journals in technical communication have responded to these calls for a change in focus through the use of affiliation and keyword network analyses. Through the author-journal affiliation networks, I found technical communication journals mirror power laws as exhibited in other fields; there is a small group of authors and institutions that produce the majority of works. The author’s institutional affiliations, both in terms of employment and graduate degree, follow this same pattern. Authors also tended to have degrees in technical communication or some iteration of it. Through the keyword network, I found that articles on technical communication are mainly discussing topics concerning rhetoric and composition, followed by research in and discussions on the field technical communication as well as information technology. Submitted by Dana Lamparello (dlampare@iit.edu) on 2012-08-23T15:37:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 charise_thesis_final_signed.pdf: 666957 bytes, checksum: 95f1c17442710baad2891f500d0d5e6e (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2012-08-23T15:37:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 charise_thesis_final_signed.pdf: 666957 bytes, checksum: 95f1c17442710baad2891f500d0d5e6e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05 M.S. in Communication and Information Design, May 2012 2012-04-22 2012-05 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/2826 en Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access HUM / Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department