Course Title: Surveillance and Professional Communication
Author: Morgan Banville, Massachusetts Maritime Academy
Date Published: 2025
Course Level: Upper-Level Undergraduate
Course Description: Connotations of surveillance are labeled as largely nefarious, complicated by the ways in which surveillance is poised as a “necessity” for “safety,” “security,” and “compliance.” Public response is often to dismiss issues of surveillance, security, and privacy; however, as writers, professional and technical communicators, and members of society, it is important to understand how we may become more empowered citizens. We become more empowered by understanding the impact of surveillance technologies in our lives, in our writing, and in our practices. In this Humanities II elective, we will examine sites of surveillance as they relate to professional and technical writing. We will read and respond to topics including (but not limited to), algorithmic bias, disability and AI, data mining, surveillance capitalism, privacy, and more. This course will emphasize critical reading, writing, and listening to scholarly and popular texts that center historically excluded and silenced voices. Assignments will include original research writing; responses to readings, case scenarios, and peer writing; collaborative discussions; and multimodal projects. Students will rhetorically analyze sites of surveillance as they relate to professional and technical writing and their career goals/trajectories, responding to them in socially relevant ways for a range of audiences.
Learning Outcomes: At the conclusion of this course, students should be able to:
- Learn how emerging technologies impact groups of people within specific
sites of surveillance as they relate to students’ future career paths and
interests. - Acquire a conceptual toolkit for analyzing issues related to technology,
accessibility, and social justice, as they relate to technical and professional
communication. - Gain experience collaborating with other students to investigate the political,
social, cultural, and economic impacts of emerging technologies. - Analyze both explicit and implicit messages in professional documents.
- Think rhetorically about one’s own writing choices and those of others.
- Identify bias and consider its implications in workplace and organizational
spaces. - Write for multiple audiences and purposes and in multiple media contexts.
- Communicate effectively, ethically, and responsibly.
- Demonstrate skills, strategies, and conceptual knowledge and practices
related to composing and communication tasks (research, revision,
collaboration, editing, organization, design, etc.) - Theorize a variety of reasons, using rhetorical language, for why a
responsibility to the public is important for professionals in order for their
writing practice to be useful and effective.
Teaching Philosophy: “Surveillance,” as a critical term, invokes the systemic observational practices purposefully used when controlling bodies. Interdisciplinary researchers argue surveillance depends on emergent social structures and social processes often rendered invisible for the benefit of political, cultural, technological, educational institutions (Marx, 2015). As issues of surveillance (broadly defined) are rendered increasingly visible via recent controversies surrounding reproductive justice following the overturning of Roe v. Wade; anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation, especially related to health care; content restrictions in social media, schools, and public libraries; and growing innovations in biometrics and AI, our academic scholarship and public discourse can no longer ignore or downplay increasing bodily control vis-á-vis surveillance.
This course provides students with the foundational skills to add to their digital literacy toolbox. Students will not only learn about privacy, surveillance, and security, but also research key concepts that are integral to their respective career trajectories. While the course certainly offers a nuanced understanding of power in communication and writing, the curriculum is designed to empower students to become better equipped with addressing issues of surveillance and privacy within the technical and professional workplace.
