ABSTRACT
The Shuttle Challenger disaster, the crash of an Amtrak train near Baltimore, the collapse of the Hyatt hotel in Kansas City, the incident at Three Mile Island, and other large-scale technological disasters have provided powerful examples of the ways that communication practices influence the events and decisions that precipitate a disaster. These examples have raised ethical questions about the responsibility of writers within agencies, epistemological questions about the nature of representation in science, and rhetorical questions about the nature of expertise and experience as grounds for judgments about risk. The answers to these questions frequently reflect more general concerns about the nature of modernity, the role of language as a determinant of cultural practices within a postmodern society, and the nature and distribution of risk in a technological society.
