Erin Brock Carlson

Associate Professor

Erin Brock Carlson’s research centers the relationships between place, technology, and power, focusing on how communities work together to address complex public problems through communication and community organizing. She uses community-based and participatory approaches in her research.

Recent and ongoing projects include facilitating cultural equity conversations across West Virginian artists; documenting the experiences of West Virginians affected by natural gas pipeline development; and advocating for place-oriented understandings of public health data. Erin is also working on a book manuscript articulating the value of place-based knowledges to Appalachian organizing and activism during regional economic transition, drawing from a yearlong participatory photovoice project with a group of community organizers.

She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in professional, technical, and multimedia writing, as well as Digital Humanities and accompanying research methods.

Find out more about her work on her website and her Google Scholar page.

Specializations:

Technical and Professional Communication
Public and Digital Rhetorics
Participatory Research Methodologies
Community Engagement and Service Learning
Rhetorical Theory

Recent Publications:

Carlson, Erin Brock. (2025). Trust, understand, act: Using visual place-based research methods to more deeply understand community perspectives. In Designing for Social Justice: Community-engaged Approaches to Technical and Professional Communication. Jialei Jiang & Jason Tham (Eds.), Routledge.

Carlson, Erin Brock. (2025). ‘Identity is just the vessel through which the struggle gets shaped’: Identity-conscious community organizing in Appalachia. In Routledge Handbook on Technical and Professional Communication. Natasha Jones, Laura Gonzales, Angela Haas, and Miriam Williams (Eds.), Routledge.

Caretta, Martina Angela, Erin Brock Carlson, & Rachael Hood. (2024). “Shale gas development will bring local economic benefits”: An analysis of central Appalachian landowners’ lived experience and situated knowledge of extractivism. Geoforum. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104050

Carlson, Erin Brock. (2023). “I have always loved West Virginia, but…”: How archival projects can complicate, build, and reimagine place-based literacies. Community Literacy Journal, 17(2). 25–48. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/communityliteracy/vol17/iss2/4

Carlson, Erin Brock. (2023). “Who am I fighting for? Who am I accountable to?”: Comradeship as a frame for nonprofit community work in technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 32(2). 165–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2022.2085810

Carlson, Erin Brock, & Trinity Overmyer. (2023). Tuning to place: Using participant-generated imagery as a tool for problem-solving in technical communication classrooms. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 37(4). 378–408. https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519231179965

Wertz, Olivia, Kandi Workman, & Erin Brock Carlson. (2023). Seeking out the stakeholders: Building coalitions to address cultural (in)equity through arts-based, community-engaged research. Special issue on community-based research for Communication Design Quarterly, 11(2). 18–27. https://cdq.sigdoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/CDQ-Special-Issue-11.2-Full.pdf

Caretta, Martina Angela, & Erin Brock Carlson. (2023). Local residents’ lived experiences of energy sprawl in West Virginia. A visual exploration of landscape change. Landscape Research, 48(6). 841–858. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2023.2187766

Carlson, Erin Brock, & Martina Angela Caretta. (2023). Collaborative sensemaking through photos: Using photovoice to study gas pipeline development in Appalachia. Qualitative Research, 24(2). 367–390.https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941221149582

Caretta, Martina Angela, & Erin Brock Carlson. (2023). Coercion via eminent domain and legal fees: the acceptance of gas extraction in West Virginia. Environmental Justice, 16(1). 36–42. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.0093

Carlson, Erin Brock. (2022). Against hillbilly hot takes: Humanizing Appalachia through nuanced rhetorical frames. Present Tense. https://www.presenttensejournal.org/volume-9/against-hillbilly-hot-takes-humanizing-rural-appalachia-through-nuanced-rhetorical-frames/

Carlson, Erin Brock, Michelle McMullin, & Patricia Sullivan. (2022). <Ex>tending the archives: Digital archival practices and making the work of technical communicators visible to students. In T. S. Graban & W. Hayden (Eds.), Teaching through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism (pp. 158–177). Southern Illinois University Press. http://siupress.com/books/978-0-8093-3857-3

Gouge, Catherine, & Erin Brock Carlson. (2022). Building towards more just data practices. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 65(1). 241–254. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2021.3137675