By Michele Hearn, DRPC Graduate Research Assistant

The Digital Rhetoric Privacy Collective (DRPC) has made a significant mark in the field of rhetoric and composition with their recent winnings of the 2024 John Lovas Award for Outstanding Online Project presented by Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy and the 2023-2024 Computers and Composition Michelle Kendrick Outstanding Digital Production or Scholarship Award. These prestigious accolades, recognizing the DRPC’s commitment to bridging academic and public discourse on data privacy and digital surveillance, signal a promising future for the collective and its contributions to the scholarly community.

John Lovas Award: Championing Public Intellectualism

The John Lovas Award for Outstanding Online Project presented by Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy honors projects that exemplify the model of a public intellectual through sustained engagement with digital tools. The DRPC’s multifaceted platform—featuring an archive of pedagogical materials, an active blog, a regular newsletter, virtual office hours, and the impactful Privacy Week—demonstrates a deep commitment to public scholarship. By leveraging these resources, the DRPC has created a dynamic space for discussions on data privacy and digital surveillance, embodying the spirit of John Lovas’s legacy in legitimizing academic knowledge-sharing on the Internet.

Michelle Kendrick Award: Celebrating Outstanding Digital Scholarship

The Computers and Composition Michelle Kendrick Outstanding Digital Production or Scholarship Award acknowledges exceptional digital productions that blend intellectual and creative efforts in digital media scholarship. DRPC’s Privacy Week, a hybrid event involving scholars, librarians, and activists from 14 universities, was a standout achievement. This week-long series of discussions, workshops, and panels, all documented and publicly available online, highlighted the DRPC’s dedication to making scholarly work accessible and impactful. The event’s success underlined the DRPC’s role in fostering a critical understanding of digital privacy issues across various contexts and communities.

Impact on the Future of the DRPC

These awards not only recognize the DRPC’s past achievements but also pave the way for its future endeavors. With increased visibility and validation from these honors, the DRPC is well-positioned to expand its reach and influence. The DRPC plans to continue its scholar-activism by evaluating the outcomes of Privacy Week and exploring opportunities for future events and collaborations.

Looking ahead, the DRPC hopes to publish an edited collection based on their work which further contributes to the field or rhetoric and composition’s literature concerning data privacy and digital surveillance. Additionally, ongoing projects, such as the development of new resources and partnerships with undergraduate interns, ensure the DRPC remains at the forefront of discussions on rhetorical privacy and surveillance.

For its members, these awards offer significant professional recognition, enhancing their scholarly profiles and opening doors to new academic and collaborative opportunities. The DRPC’s interinstitutional nature will continue to foster a diverse and inclusive scholarly community, driving forward critical conversations and innovative research in digital rhetorics and privacy and surveillance studies.

Reflections from DRPC Members

To understand the personal and collective significance of these awards, I posed a couple of questions to some of the folks involved with the DRPC. The following quotes are but a small sampling of the commentary from just some of scholars and students involved in the DRPC.

What does winning this award mean to you, either as an individual or as part of our collective?

Morgan Banville: “I am especially grateful and excited to be receiving the John Lovas Award. This award gives recognition to projects that are open-access and promote knowledge sharing across public spaces. One of my major contributions and goals for the DRPC was to create content that would have impact outside of the academic circles that we often revolve in. The work that we do specifically in privacy and surveillance is important and impacts so many people in their everyday lives and contexts. I want audiences to use the DRPC as a resource in enhancing their digital literacies. In a similar vein, I feel fortunate to also be receiving the Michelle Kendrick award. The digital scholarship that we produce takes time and intent, and it’s rewarding to join a long list of scholars whom I admire for their digital contributions.” 

Gavin P. Johnson: “Winning these awards underlines the importance of bridging academic and public conversations about privacy and surveillance. I hope these recognitions encourage more people to contribute to the DRPC so that we can continue to grow this coalition.”

How do you think this sets up the future for the DRPC?

Chen Chen: “I think winning these awards means that the field of rhetoric and composition is recognizing the work of our Collective, but particularly showing that they value issues related to surveillance and privacy.For the future of our collective, I hope that this gives us even more visibility in the field so that more people can be involved with the Collective in different ways.”

Noah Wason: “Whenever you put something out into the world, you never know if someone else is engaging with it, what they are getting from it. This award is that rare opportunity to know that the work we shared – the newsletters, blog posts, programs – mean something. That our work is helping. And that makes all the difference. I think it shows that the DRPC’s work is resonating with people, that we are fulfilling our goals in a tangible way. This recognition will do a lot to motivate us to keep developing the project and take more risks.”

Conclusion

In summary, the DRPC’s twin victories underscore its vital role in bridging academic and public discourse on data privacy and digital surveillance. As Dr. Charles Woods explained, “I did have the foresight to consider how winning grants and awards would lend credibility to the DRPC when I articulated the project years ago, but the DRPC is a collective, a coalition, and the project requires collective vision, not a singular one. I am humbled to be a part of crafting that vision, but the future is collective.”

As the DRPC moves forward, it is poised to make more substantial contributions to the field, supported by the recognition and momentum these awards provide. Morgan Banville said, ““These awards help to showcase the value of our work–not that awards dictate whether or not your work is valuable. However, with my personal goal of forwarding the mission of the DRPC to create more public-facing content, and our collective goal of educating and creating open-access resources for instructors and students to use in the classroom space, the awards signify to grant-awarding institutions that this mission can be forwarded. After our Emergent Researcher grant from CCCC, we were excited to create a very successful “Privacy Week”: what we’d like to do is continue this momentum.”

The future looks bright for the DRPC and its mission to advocate for privacy and surveillance awareness through scholarly and public engagement.