Apocalypticism is a powerful brew of eschatological belief and political imagination that is extremely persuasive. This article addresses the intersections between apocalyptic rhetoric and the technical communication of risk, disease outbreak, and disaster preparedness by analyzing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s zombie apocalypse preparedness campaign. Specifically, I argue that the framing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s campaign relies on and extends problematic iterations of apocalypticism and undermines the educational objectives of disaster preparedness and response. I conclude with suggestions for how technical communicators designing public awareness and outreach campaigns can use existential risk rhetoric for engagement without succumbing to the pernicious side effects of apocalypticism.

No abstract

Trans* communities across the United States are under assault. Researchers seeking to work with trans* people and other multiply marginalized and underrepresented communities must attend to ethical research practices within the communities in which they participate. Digital research ethics is particularly murky with issues of embodiment, vulnerability, and unclear IRB guidance. Comparing two transparency activist organizations-Wikileaks and DDoSecrets-we introduce "qubit ethics," a trans*material, transcorporeal ethics of care as praxis within vulnerable online communities. We then demonstrate how this unique approach to research design allows for the complex entanglements that is trans* life, particularly digital life. Finally, we present clear take-aways for qubit-ethics informed social justice research. CCS CONCEPTS• B7; Social and professional topics → User characteristics; Gender.

Design, Ecology, Politics: Towards the Ecocene is a must-read for any communication design educator or practitioner concerned with the deleterious effects of the Anthropocene (or its critical counterpart the Capitalocene), which names the current geological era marked by human dominance over environmental processes. In this book, Dr. Joanna Boehnert deftly incorporates ecological thinking into design pedagogy to articulate a path forward for a new era of human-environment relations built on cooperation rather than exploitation. Existential threats abound in a modern era built on endless consumption and production cycles driven by market logic. For too long, designers have tacitly participated in the destructive tendencies of the neoliberal political project by convincing themselves and others that their work is neutral. This book is a wake-up call that highlights the role that design has played in constructing the precarious conditions of the modern world and, more importantly, the role designers could play in charting a way out of the mess humanity has made.