WRAC Professor Wins CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Award

Steven Fraiberg, Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University, received a 2022 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Technical and Scientific Communication Award for the Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research in Technical or Scientific Communication. 

Fraiberg’s article, “Unsettling Start-Up Ecosystems: Geographies, Mobilities, and Transnational Literacies in the Palestinian Start-Up Ecosystem,” was published in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication (Volume 35 Issue 2). This complex, nuanced study examines not only underrepresented contexts and communities, but also central topics in technical communication, such as entrepreneurship, social justice, design, space/place, social media, power, and representation.  

“I am honored to have received this award and gratified that the field has called attention to the increasing significance of startup innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in the context of 21st century globalization.”

By investigating global start-up networks through a multi-level analysis, Fraiberg highlights the relationship between borders, space, mobility, identity, and difference in an emerging Palestinian economic system. 

“I am honored to have received this award and gratified that the field has called attention to the increasing significance of startup innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in the context of 21st century globalization,” Fraiberg said. “There has been a fair amount written about the Israeli startup system with more startups per capita than any other place in the world. What has been less visible is an emergent Palestinian ecosystem. My research is aimed at tracing the growth of this system and locating it in social, cultural, geographic, and political contexts. My scholarship is further aimed at looking at how the Palestinian entrepreneurial ecosystem is deeply entangled with the Israeli ecosystem.” 

Headshot of a man with gray hair in a navy blue sweater standing in front of a bookshelf.
Steven Fraiberg, Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures

Fraiberg is extending this research agenda in collaboration with two Palestinian scholars. This research team recently received an MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity Seed Grant to continue with their study for the next 15 months.  

Fraiberg’s research interests include Globalization in Higher Education and Workplaces, Startup Entrepreneurs and Innovation Systems, Composition Studies, and Multi-Translingualism 

“My research broadly attends to the links between literacy, mobility, and globalization. Grounded in ethnographic and sociocultural traditions, I have two research strands at the moment.”

“My research broadly attends to the links between literacy, mobility, and globalization,” he said. “Grounded in ethnographic and sociocultural traditions, I have two research strands at the moment. The first attends to the global innovation systems and transnational entrepreneurs with a focus on the Israeli/Palestinian high-tech industries. Second, I am involved in studying global shifts in higher education.”  

Fraiberg was announced as a recipient of the Technical and Scientific Communication Award at the CCCC Awards Presentation on March 11 during the 2022 CCCC Annual Convention

The CCCC Technical and Scientific Communication Awards recognize authors in six categories: Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication; Best Original Collection of Essays in Technical or Scientific Communication; Best Article Reporting Qualitative or Quantitative Research in Technical or Scientific Communication; Best Article Reporting Historical Research or Textual Studies in Technical or Scientific Communication; Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical or Scientific Communication; and Best Article on Pedagogy or Curriculum in Technical or Scientific Communication.  

The Conference on College Composition and Communication is a constituent organization within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). With more than 4,000 members and subscribers, the CCCC supports and promotes the teaching and study of composition, rhetoric, and communication skills at the college level, both in undergraduate and graduate programs.