Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the publication of a new special issue of the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication devoted to the theme of security logics and technical communication:
Special Issue: Technical Communication In/Against Security Logics
Journal: Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (SAGE)
Access the special issue online here.
This special issue investigates how technical communicators employ methods, cultural frameworks, and discourses that invoke threats in order to rationalize institutional policies and procedures. These rationalizations—often framed in the language of safety, efficiency, and functionality—are known as security logics. While presented as protective, such logics frequently justify restrictions on civil freedoms, the erosion of privacy, the expansion of surveillance, and the reinforcement of racial and economic inequities.
The collection situates technical communication as a central medium through which security logics are made tangible—via manuals, reports, data visualizations, UX/UI design, policies, translations, instructions, and other professional genres. Drawing on rhetorical analysis, critical security studies, UX research, and cultural critique, the contributors examine how technical communication enables state, corporate, and institutional securitization while also identifying ethical and tactical approaches for resisting dominant security narratives.
Featured articles include:
- Morgan C. Banville & Kimberlyn Harrison, “How Biometrics Travel: Reimagining Opt Out Logics” — A rhetorical and narrative analysis of the Transportation Security Administration’s biometric programs, proposing “opt out logics” as a design and discourse framework for resisting invasive surveillance.
- McKinley Green, “Trans and Queer Visibility in an Era of Hypersurveillance” — A UX study of university systems for sharing gender pronouns that examines institutionalized visibility, risk, and the tactical resistances of trans and queer students.
- Priyanka Ganguly, “Constructing Transnational Security Logics” — A genre and thematic analysis of USAID maternal health narratives, showing how crisis-driven security frameworks reproduce dependency and marginalization in global development policy.
- Sarah Young & Famke Visser, “Agency Between Logics” — A study of data protection officers in the European Union and the tactical, ethical labor required to navigate conflicting institutional and regulatory demands.
- Brittany Halley & Elizabeth Velasquez, “Lessons in Security Logics from Cold-War Guatemala” — An analysis of CIA radio broadcasts that reveals early intersections of multimodality, regime change, and technical communication.
Additional online-only contributions address Cop City counternarratives (Natasha N. Jones & Donnie Johnson Sackey), nuclear security rhetoric (Ryan Cheek), and UX design for informed data privacy (Lacy Hope, Joy McMurrin, & Merika Moffat), further extending the issue’s engagement with surveillance, militarization, and sociotechnical power.
Together, the authors call on scholars, educators, and practitioners to:
- Critique and revise professional ethical frameworks
- Develop strategies for evaluating security practices
- Design humane and accountable communication during crises
- Prepare students and colleagues to assess the real-world consequences of securitized technical work
As security logics continue to expand across domains such as AI, biometrics, cybersecurity, data governance, and surveillance, this special issue positions technical communication not merely as a vehicle of securitization, but as a site of ethical intervention and disciplinary responsibility.
Thank you to Editor-in-Chief Charles H. Sides and to Special Issues Editor Isidore K. Dorpenyo. We hope this collection will be of value to researchers, teachers, and practitioners working across technical communication, rhetoric, security studies, UX, and information policy, and we invite you to share it widely with colleagues and students.
With appreciation,
Christopher J. Morris, PhD
Assistant Professor
York University
Fashion Institute of Technology
christopher.jh.morris