This book shows how people in institutions and organizations use rhetorical strategies based in power asymmetries between institutions and the public to present, justify, and maintain controversial policies. More specifically, this book focuses on how institutional rhetoric is used to rhetorically construct and defend particular versions of reality required to achieve institutional goals in the face of missing or contradictory evidence to justify controversial agendas. Drawing on deliberative power asymmetries between institutions and the publics they engage with, Institutional Rhetoric dives into the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the 2016 Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, and governmental agencies adopting controversial “tech tools” like facial recognition and algorithmic decision-making to show how rhetoric, institutional rules, and institutional power combine to strengthen weak institutional arguments while minimizing public pushback to controversial policies and the public adoption of problematic tech.

Mark Thompson is Associate Professor of English and the Director of Professional & Technical Writing at San Jose State University, the largest public university in Silicon Valley. He is also a 30-year veteran of the tech industry, having worked as a technical/content/marketing writer, editor, and consultant for Microsoft, Viacom, Capitol Records, the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle, and over a dozen smaller start-ups. He has been teaching technical communication and UX design at San Jose State University for 12 years.