About Face: Mapping Our Institutional Presence

In this article, we situate the web sites of technical and professional writing programs as important institutional spaces that serve as interfaces to particular values, beliefs, and practices. Specifically, we examine the ways in which the web sites of United States-based programs craft identity and anchor these programs. We also analyze the ways in which the digital interfaces we create to represent our work do and don’t mesh with who we are as a field and what we value theoretically and pedagogically. We borrow from the work of James Porter, Patricia Sullivan, Stuart Blythe, Jeff Grabill, and Libby Miles to articulate what we mean by institutional space, and extend their model of institutional critique into digital space. Further, we offer a three-fold framework for analyzing institutional spaces, related to institutional and technological dynamics, issues of agency and representation, and aesthetic dimensions.