The “ideograph”: A link between rhetoric and ideology

McGee, Michael

doi:10.1080/00335638009383499

Cited by 541 publications

(254 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…12 Van Lente draws on McGee's notion of the 'idiograph' in his discussion of the way normative technological progress serves as an incredibly flexible shared conviction, 'a high order abstraction, representing collective commitment to a particular but equivocal and ill-defined normative goal'. 13 Progress is as culturally cherished as other idiographic formations like justice, freedom and democracy. When evoked, it seems to have a life of its own, an autonomous force that appears to hover outside of agency and action.…”

Section: Contested Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sociology of Expectations:Retrospecting Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects

Brown

Michael

2003

Technology Analysis & Strategic Management

769

530

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Future expectations and promise are crucial to providing the dynamism and momentum upon which so many ventures in science and technology depend. This is especially the case for pre-market applications where practical utility and value has yet to be demonstrated and where investment must sustained. For instance, clinical biotechnology (including a wide range of genetic therapeutic and engineering applications) has been at the centre of ferocious debates about whether or not promises and expectations will be realised. In some cases, the failure of expectations has severely damaged the reputation and credibility of professions, institutions and industry. The need for a better analytical understanding of the dynamics of expectations in innovation is both necessary and timely. This paper develops the basis for a sociology of expectations, drawing on recent writing within Science and Technology Studies (STS) and case studies of biotechnology innovation. In particular, we offer a model for understanding how expectations will predictably vary according to some key parameters. Such factors include the degree to which technologies and innovation relationships are either relatively established or newly emergent. Expectations will also vary according actors' relative closeness and involvement in knowledge production itself. The paper proceeds by analysing the way expectations in clinical biotechnology have changed over time. That is, we compare the way the future was once represented with the way it has been represented more recently. The paper concludes by offering a means by which it is possible to map or model the situatedness of expectations.2

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Section: Contested Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sociology of Expectations:Retrospecting Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects

Brown

Michael

2003

Technology Analysis & Strategic Management

769

530

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“…Lastly, the current success of vulnerability goes hand-in-hand with a growing vagueness in its definition. Vulnerability has been transformed into an ideograph, which similar to concepts like equality, security, and freedom, has political relevance but is ill defined (McGee, 1980;Struffolino & Bernardi, in press).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability Across the Life Course

Spini

Bernardi

2017

Research in Human Development

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“…Complex beliefs are not captured in a single ideograph, but rather in clusters. Ideographs are understood tautologically in relation to other ideographs within their cluster, and speakers manipulate these clusters to advance their persuasive projects (McGee, 1980). For example, although professional and family caregivers both invoke the ideograph of "expert care," professionals may define the term within the cluster of "doctors," "tests," and "hospital."…”

Section: Ideographs In Caregivingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The question of how values within a community of caregivers are formed and contested is best accomplished by the tools of communication scholarship. To examine the process by which understandings of caregiving work were negotiated within the community of professional and family caregivers on St. Kitts, I drew upon the theoretical notions of communities articulated by McGee (1980), Condit (1990), and Condit and Lucaites (1993). In particular, Condit's assertion that communities are constituted by ideological, rather than physical proximity (Condit, 1990) justified approaching family and professional caregivers as a single community, united in negotiating a common framework of values and ideological commitments.…”

Section: Ideographs In Caregivingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Respite: Cultural Values in North American and Caribbean Caregiving

Dysart-Gale¹

2007

Canadian Journal of Communication

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Providing home health care to family members presents many physical and psychological stressors. Health care professionals frequently counsel family caregivers to seek respite by temporarily delegating caregiving responsibilities to others. However, when viewed from the perspective of rhetoric, definitions of respite as private time away from the care recipient are culturally bound ideographs and may not be appropriate outside North America. This qualitative study explored North American-trained social workers practising on the Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 32 (2007) 401-415 ©2007 Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation IntroductionThroughout the world, changes in the demography and epidemiology of disease, together with changes in practices of health care delivery, have precipitated a steady increase in the number of chronically ill individuals receiving long-term health care from family members in their home (World Health Organization, 2006). The stressors of caregiving have compelled many researchers and health care professionals to seek ways to assist family members in providing care to their ill and disabled loved ones. Effective communication between professional and family caregivers is one essential factor in the success of such interventions.The purpose of this project was to examine the communication between family and professional caregivers on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts as they negotiated definitions of acceptable family caregiving activities. Analysis of interview data collected during a six-week research trip revealed that while professional caregivers, all of whom were educated in North America, frequently spoke of caregiving work in the language of professional health care, they were also aware of how these professional norms conflicted with local cultural values. For their part, family caregivers tended to reject professionals' depictions of caregiving that were culturally dissonant, particularly the advice to seek respite through relinquishing caregiving duties to others outside the family circle. Instead, family caregivers advanced definitions of respite that brought them closer to family life rather than isolating them from it.The results suggest that while professional and family caregivers constituted a single community of care, there were important differences in the ways in which the stakeholders viewed key values that defined caregiving work. Michael Calvin McGee's discussion of ideographs in deliberative discourse (1980) provides the theoretical underpinning for our examination of the polysemy and evolving meaning of terms related to these key values. By shedding light on the communication process between professional and family caregivers, McGee's discussion can suggest avenues leading to improved professional communication practices.

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The “ideograph”: A link between rhetoric and ideology

Cited by 541 publications

References 16 publications

A Sociology of Expectations:Retrospecting Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects

A Sociology of Expectations:Retrospecting Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects

Vulnerability Across the Life Course

Respite: Cultural Values in North American and Caribbean Caregiving

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