Shaping knowledge for graying audiences: where are the technical communicators?

Abstract

Populations worldwide are aging at a dramatic rate, and researchers in many disciplines are studying the effects of aging. Technical communicators, however, do not seem aware of these important trends. This article suggests that we need to incorporate interdisciplinary research on aging into our practice and teaching. The first step is to operationalize the demographic of age as a complex variable in our audience analysis. Then we need to conduct and publish our own research on the communication and documentation needs of older adults.