Pushing the critical envelope: A Jamesonian approach to technical documentation

The interpretive method outlined by Fredric Jameson's The Political Unconscious, applied in this project to software documentation, reveals the ideological function of the text on three levels: a narrow political/historical level revealing the text's narrative push to undermine its own formal structure, a social level revealing voices of social class and narrative hegemonic strategies, and an economic level revealing the ideology of the text's form as it bridges the gap between individuals and the economic system in late capitalism. This project reveals the underlying political influences manifested in an objective text and proposes that this type of critical analysis advances technical communication critical theory.