Forum Moderation as Technical Communication: The Social Web and Employment Opportunities for Technic...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Beteiligte: Frith, Jordan
In: Technical Communication, 61, 2014, 3, S. 173-184
veröffentlicht:
Society for Technical Communication
Medientyp: Artikel, E-Artikel

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Umfang: 173-184
ISSN: 0049-3155
1938-369X
veröffentlicht in: Technical Communication
Sprache: Englisch
Schlagwörter:
Kollektion: sid-55-col-jstoras14
JSTOR Arts & Sciences XIV Archive
Inhaltsangabe

<p>Purpose: This article examines online help forums as a form of technical communication. The purpose of the article is to explore the similarities between moderators of help forums and technical communicators. The article argues that technical communicators are uniquely suited to step in as "community managers" of companies' official online help forums. Method: This study reports on qualitative research done with 23 help forum moderators. The researcher used an iterative grounded theory approach to seek out research participants and code the interview data to examine emergent data categories. The research was also supplemented by six months of observation and an extensive memoing process. Results: The interviews with forum moderators show that help forum moderation requires many of the skills technical communicators already possess. Moderators play an important role in the health of online help forums, and they must be able to work with subject-matter experts, edit content, organize material, create content, and shape the overall tone of the forum. Conclusion: Many companies now sponsor official help forums, and these companies need community managers to run these sites. The data reported in this study show that technical communicators possess the skills to succeed in these positions and help develop professional online help forums. In conclusion, technical communicators have a strong case to make that they are well positioned to step in as community managers, especially of professionally sponsored online help forums.</p>