Bogost’s Rhetorical Moves

It is very likely that those who read the title of Ian Bogost’s article, The Problem with Diversity in Computing, are not expecting it to open with the following paragraph:

“When Amy Webb broke her ankle, she was forced to hobble around on a walking boot. That inconvenience spawned others: among them, she couldn’t pass through the metal detector at airport TSA PreCheck lines any longer. Instead, she had to use the backscatter machines that produce X-ray images of passengers.”

Bogost’s first rhetorical move gets the better of the reader’s curiosity by making them wonder “what does this have to do with diversity in computing?” Their interest has been piqued and they are now invested in reading more.

Next, the author introduces us to Ms. Webb’s background where we find out “Webb, who is a professor at New York University and the author of The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, took the inconvenience as a firsthand opportunity to watch how this technology, which uses computational methods to mark possible risks on the body, really works.”

Now we are starting to get the picture! Amy Webb has some expertise on how people are affected by technology and uses this knowledge to enlighten us on how technology can be discriminatory at the airport. “I’m looking at the screen,” she says of the image that appeared from her scan, “and my cast, head, and breasts were big blocks of yellow.” “It was because of underwire bras, she later learned, which the system sometimes can’t distinguish from potential weapons.” Here, the author’s rhetorical move is to use Webb’s authority on the subject matter to help the reader buy into whatever he writes next.

Although Bogost doesn’t explicitly say so, we realize he probably agrees with Webb’s sentiment about technology because he utilizes a third rhetorical move where he states, “Webb’s experience is among the more innocuous consequences of computer systems that don’t anticipate all the types of people who might use them.” He also cites a fact that “Computers have started issuing prison sentences, for example.” to further point out how things have just gone too far.

Later, the author employs the “twist it” move in TSIS, where he agrees with Webb’s initial assessment that “someone like me wasn’t in the room” when the system at the airport was being developed. Yet his evidence supports a contrary position. The author opines “For years, companies and educators in the tech sector have framed diversity as a “pipeline” problem.” “We’ve had this obsession with STEM education,” he quotes Webb as saying. “It’s reached fever pitch, manifested in these programs where every kid has to learn to code.” Then Bogost further quotes Webb stating “If everyone is focused on the nuts and bolts of making software quickly at scale, where will they learn to design it with equity and care? “Critical thinking is what the computers won’t be able to do,” she said.”

Finally, Bogost illustrates to us that solutions are more complex than we thought, and, in the end, it may not be about gender, ethnic or racial diversity, but about an exclusive computing education and culture that discriminates against us all. The author writes “Anyone who falls outside of that core group of interests are not being represented,” Webb said. If she’s right, then the problem with computing isn’t just that it doesn’t represent a diverse public’s needs. Instead, the problem with computing is computing.” This last rhetorical move implements a TSIS template for agreeing on one view and challenging another; if X is right that___, then the problem is___.

Fancy that. Even a professional journalist has made use of a template!