Throughout the article, Bogost usage os several rhetorical strategies to capture the attention of the audiecne so he can clearly convey his message.
Bogost begins by introducing Amy Webb, a woman who had to go through a backscatter machine at the airport due to her broken ankle. As she went through the machine she noticed that her “cast ,head, and breasts were big blocks of yellow” which meant she need to be pat down. This is because the machines were unable to distinguish between her underwire bra and a weapon. Bogost the includes that this was due to the lack of anticipation by the computers of the diversity in the people that will be utilizing this technology. By providing us with this story at the beginning of the article, it allows the readers to imagine this situation and see the connect to the title “The Problem with Diversity in Computing”.
Another way Bogost conveys his message is when he includes the rhetorical question posed by Charles Isbell who is the incoming dean of computing at Georgia Tech. Isbell states “The real question is:Are we interested in diversity, or are we interested in integration?”. After integrating this rhetorical question, he then goes on to explain the difference between diversity and integration. This allows readers to understand whether the focus should be on integration or diversity in these computing communities.
Bogost incorporates Webbs statement that we as a society have put such importance on STEM education which can result in more harm than good. Bogost then goes on to explain that if everyone is focusing on building software quickly, they won’t spend enough time to design their programs with equity and care which will result in situations similar to Amy Webbs situation at the airport
Bogost inclusion Webbs statement that the issue is not just the underrepresentation of women, black people, and others, but “We’re all discriminated against by computing”. He then goes on to explain that computing professionals create a tribe based on the “exclusive culture of computing education and industry.” By including this, Bogost explains that due to this culture, computing professionals disregard everything else such as including different types of people, and instead focus solely on “the pursuit of technological solutions at maximum speed.”
To end off the article Bogost states “…the problem with computing is computing” . The inclusion of this statement serves to tie everything Bogost mentioned in the article together. The culture developed in computing and the way STEM education prioritizes the creation of software rather than other important aspects such as inclusion, have made it so that computing as a whole is essentially the entire issue. The only way to improve is by changing computing.
Think about what Bogost accomplishes with this last move you identify–he’s asking us to think about this one particular dimension as illustrative of a much larger problem. He’s extrapolating in such a way that it gives his audience reason to keep thinking about the issue he has identified, long after they read this article and even beyond the TSA fixing the specific problem that Webb experienced.