THE RHETORIC OF A HEALTH TECHNOLOGY - THE MICROPROCESSOR PATIENT CARD

literature discussing rhetoric is mainly concerned with rhetoric per s e its structure, and the categorization of arguments by kind. Rarely d o rhetorical studies examine the actual effects on audiences, and audi tors' reactions. On the other hand, sociological studies of scientific controversies look at rhetoric - or argumentation - in action, but wi th few references to rhetorical studies.The purpose of this paper is t o integrate rhetorical studies into the sociology of technology in ord er to integrate the concept of action into discourse analysis. I inten d to show how the use of discourse to enroll actors in a health techno logy is intimately linked to action. I deconstruct the promoters' stra tegy into two discursive components - the utility component and the fe ar-reduction component - to show how the rhetoric of expectations (uti lity) and representations (fear) contingently shape the fate of a tech nology.