Scholars in communication, media ecology, and science studies research the rhetoric of technology.
While the definition and scope of rhetoric is contested, scholars in the discipline, or rhetoricians, study the capacity of symbols to create change and influence perspectives.
Within technological consciousness, actions are right or wrong regardless of cultural possibilities because assessments are assumed to be objective.
Carolyn Miller suggested that one reason for the relative lack of rhetoric of technology scholarship is that it is harder to find relevant texts to analyze.
Miller noted that many of the primary texts dealing with technology are private company documents.
They suggest that the corrective is in response to a “poststructuralist impasse” in the field of communication, rhetoric, and media studies.
Packer and Wiley also identify key themes that are explored in materialist approaches: economy, discourse, technology, space, and bodies.
[6] In a 1992 article, Steven B. Katz employed Miller's "technological consciousness" to help explain the rhetoric used by members of the Nazi regime to enact the Holocaust.
As the intelligent agent model of computing has grown in popularity, Miller suggests that there has been a shift from a logos-centric to a pathos-centric ethos.
John A. Lynch and William J. Kinsella describe how both technology and rhetoric are both concerned with creating something new from available resources and know-how.
Miller contends that within technological discourse kairos is both a powerful theme and useful tool of analysis.