Clark argues that, while the separation of form fromcontent is not a new concept, “no content is [truly] free of presentation” and that“[c]ontent and presentation are never separated.” Within the content managementcontext, therefore, Clark suggests understanding this separation in two ways: (a) ascontent being complete texts, and presentation being output structure, navigation,and visual style; and (b) as content being content modules, and presentation beingoutput structure, navigation, visual style, and genre definition. This separation,dictated by the nature of structured writing and single sourcing and by the techno-logical nature of content management systems, is perceived in different ways interms of its affordances by different participant groups involved in the contentmanagement process.

For a content management system to be successful, Hall (2001) argues, two im-portant factors must be emphasized: end users (documentation specialists) anduser needs.

as far as we know, books on content manage-ment systems have almost exclusively approached the topic from the practical per-spective. In other words, they teach you how to design and/or use such systemswithout critical examinations of why such systems should be used in the first placeand why they succeed or fail. Nor do they consider what effect working in such en-vironments has on writing as a practice

“the process of coming to content management touches nearly everythingabout the culture of writing in an organization, beginning with how texts are under-stood and encompassing every step of the text generation life cycle up to and in-cluding the way a text should behave when a user interacts with it.” More impor-tantly, they argue, organizations should view content management “as a change inthe technological and social infrastructure that makes their organization work.”

A potential solution to this problem, proposes Whittemore, can be found inthe heart of technical communication theory—the rhetorical tradition—and, morespecifically, the rhetorical canon of memory. To Whittemore, the rhetorical canonof memory’s “concern for retrieving and adapting existing knowledge to the exi-gencies of shifting rhetorical situations” provides valuable insights into tacklingsome of the contemporary issues confronting content management: “contentcustomizability and granularity, information retrieval, and on-demand delivery.”

The very expressioncontent managementexcludes any idea of writingor communicating and focuses on information independently of the people whoproduce or consume it.

Content manage-ment, no doubt, is still a relatively new area within the academic circle, although itis by no means a new practice in the industry.

Content management, broadly defined, refers to the “process of collecting, manag-ing, and publishing information to whatever medium you need” (Boiko, 2005, p. xv).A content management system, then, is any systematic method designed to organizeand distribute information, while content management system software automatesthe system, typically providing “a platform for managing the creation, review, filing,updating, distribution, and storage of structured and unstructured content”

The authors here in-vestigate not just thehowfor content management but thewhy, not just to rational-ize the content management practice and our participation in the practice but torhetoricize such practice, i.e., to construct and deconstruct the discourse surround-ing content management and to contextualize the design and implementation ofCMSs for the benefit of not only the end result—information design and dissemi-nation—but also the end users—technical communicators.

plementation in business settings, and sadly in university settings as well, involvesonly managers and IT personnel such as developers. The most important part ofthis whole puzzle—th