ABSTRACT
The environments in which professional writers work are changing rapidly. The seemingly constant evolution of virtual writing and collaboration technologies and the globalization of the workplace are two of the most important factors that effect this change. These and other developments have prompted a reexamination of the legal aspects of professional writers’ work. No doubt, a large part of this reexamination has to do with copyright laws and regulations, which are tightly connected to the questions about text and information ownership and the rights to share. In his March/April 2010 article in EDUCAUSE Review, Lawrence Lessig addresses this concern as the “extraordinarily large elephant in the room”: the fact that copyright has grown from having a “tiny” role in our lives to being the gate through which we have to pass in order to have access to our culture. Why has “the architecture of digital technology” become so inextricably tied to “the architecture of copyright law” (p. 28)? In order to answer this question meaningfully and usefully for professional writers and professional communication students, we members of the profession need to consider some even more fundamental questions and problems. Has, for example, the very nature of “text” been changed by new computer-mediated communication technologies and processes? What about “the author” or “the audience”? How much premium are we as educators willing to put on our
students’ ability to produce individual work as opposed to their ability to collab - orate with other writers, including writers in other cultures or economic systems? Answering, or at least considering these questions will allow us as members of the profession and as educators to design educational philosophies, methodol - ogies, courses, and assignments fitting the globalized nature of professional com - munication in the 21st century. As professional writing and communication changes, so should our understandings of authorship and textual ownership, intel - lectual property, and our rights and responsibilities as professional communicators. In this chapter, we argue that educational practice in training future prac ti - tioners in the field of professional writing and communication has not always kept up with professional practices when it comes to authorship, text ownership, copyright, and collaboration. By tracing some of the histories, theories, and questions that form our understanding of the field and of what professional writers do, we will identify how the questions of the past can help us address the challenges of the present and what implications they have to teaching, learning, and future research. Our ultimate goal is to highlight areas wherein theory and practice disconnect and to begin to chart a path toward realignment of professional practice and training of future professional communicators for the global marketplace. This change, however, should not be a one-way movement, with educators being the only ones who make changes in their work to “adjust” to professional practices. While such adjustments might be necessary for immediate practical purposes (e.g., graduates getting jobs), we believe that both academy and industry have much to learn from one another. Therefore, we hope that our work will be relevant both to educators and to industry practitioners. In order to bring the two sides closer together, we highlight some key issues of concern both to academics and to working professionals. We then propose some approaches and strategies for bringing pedagogy and praxis closer together.
