The more I read and write about technical communication, the more I self-consciously backspace and replace “technical writing” with “technical communication.” Jennifer Slack and her collaborators make explicit a shift from technical writer to technical communicator and note that this change relocates power; the technical communicator, in this role, has more power than the technical writer as mere scribe. Additionally, audiences have more power, and, consequently, the power of scientists, engineers and companies for which technical communicators write diminishes (167). This shift of power has consequences for what a technical communicator does. In hashing out the philosophies and theories of technical communication in chapter three, the editors of Central Works suggested to me that a technical communicator is more than a writer—she or he is able to handle information in diverse ways. And, as Johnson-Eilola hints at, these people will be a cornerstone in the post-industrial economy. I believe we can look at the shift from an industrial-based to an information-based economy to understand the changing role and power of the technical communicator.

To fully appreciate the changes in moving from an industrial-based economy to an information-based economy, we can look at broader issues. Marshall McLuhan speaks of moving from a “mechanical age” to an “electric age.” Many of these ideas are glossed in the introduction to Understanding Media. The mechanical age, represented by industrialization, the printing press and the written word, promoted—among other things—isolation and logic, McLuhan says (3-6). This reminds me of early efforts at creating a field of technical communication, efforts that took place in the prime of the industrial era. Here, Robert Connors tells us technical communications textbooks focused on “forms” (8, 10). These forms were logical structures designed to outline specific tasks, tasks that a writer could duplicate with little training. Like a worker on an assembly line, the writer was given an isolated, simplified task. Caroline Miller notes that positivist views of science sought to impose irrefutable logic on language and education in line with these views attempted to efface the author through stylistic tricks (49-51). Slack and her collaborator’s note that this “transmission view’ gives little power to the technical communicator (163). And perhaps, during this time, “technical writing” better defines the discipline.

As our economy has become post-industrial, we see a shift in the role of the technical communicator. Writing on the transition to the electric age, McLuhan states the “partial and specialized character of the viewpoint… will not serve at all in the electric age” (5). McLuhan argues that a single person’s view is incapable of representing the totality of information available at all times in the electric age. The importance of understanding audience in technical communication grows throughout the twentieth century as rhetoric becomes more central to teaching technical communication (Rutter, 28-29; Connors, 13-14). But, I would argue that it is post-World War II that we see a more dramatic shift from an industrial economy to an information economy. And it is during this time that we also see more pronounced affects of electric technologies with the ubiquity of radio, the rise of television and the electrification of many household appliances. Robert J. Connors singles out a 1954 textbook as showing a major step because that textbook looked more closely at the actual “technical writing situations in industry” (13), thereby showing a greater interest in the audience to which technical writing is written and—as will become even more prevalent—the social situations from which technical communication arises. Perhaps the “all involving sensory mandate” McLuhan ascribes to electric technology—in this quote, television, specifically—was requiring technical communicators to engage more fully with the audiences and societies around them.

Caroline Thralls and Nancy Roundy Blyler note that the consensus among technical communication scholars—at least in 1993—is that technical communication must be looked at through a social perspective. Interestingly, within that consensus perspective, later theories place the technical communicator more and more directly into the act of communicating. The bread and butter in 1993 seems to be the social constructionist approach. This ties the communicator into the community. Knowledge is not construed in the positivist tradition, instead “knowledge results from a community’s consensus about what it will call true” (128). And, rather than finding ways to “cleanse” language of first-person references or active voice, the “constructionist view of discourse conventions places the utmost importance on language as the means by which communities are constituted” (130). In this way, language should not strive to be impassive; instead, language should speak directly to a specific group and should fit with that group’s expectations, not the expectations of some “objective” analysis.

Thralls and Blyler also note two other schools of thought, related to social constructionist. These schools push even farther from the logical and isolated view of the technical writer. I think of the ideologic theorists as the “next step up.” While the social constructionists ask technical communicators to become a student of a community so they may understand how best to address that community, ideologic theorists ask technical communicators to become involved in those communities. Rather than accepting the norms, these communicators must engage in and question the norms to ensure a more inclusive voice (134-135). I believe this mimics McLuhans exhortation that “it is no longer possible to adopt the aloof and dissociated role of the literate Westerner” (4). McLuhan is writing about how electric technologies necessarily bring our lives into closer contact. And it appears that technical communicators must similarly become more involved in their communities to be successful—if one accepts the ideologic view.

Finally, Thralls and Blyler outline the paralogic hermeneutic view of writing. And this view breaks most sharply from the picture of the isolated, logical technical communicator. Theorists in this school believe that no logic can predict the ways we communicate, so we cannot strive to teach any “forms” or other pre-made rubrics for communication. Instead, the ways we communicate are solely based on unique instances of communication. Only an immersion in the communication process and a strong sense of hermeneutic guessing will allow a technical communicator to be successful. To borrow terminology from McLuhan, technical communicators are not part of the industrial age; they are not fragmented and specialized. Instead, they are a product of the electric age, “total and inclusive” (57). Those who argue for a paralogic hermeneutic view say not just that the communicator must become involved with the community; to be successful, these communicators must become part of the communication itself.

These moves have made the term “technical writer” feel incomplete to me. Writing is a discrete task that seems in line with an industrial economy. One could have an outline, add information and send that information along. That may be the job of a “technical writer.” But, as academics and practitioners have found during the last century, that task is not sufficient. Instead, the technical communicator must understand audience, community, discourse, hermeneutics, and collaboration; tasks that may go beyond the scope of what I consider mere “writing.” Moreover, technical communicators are asked to perform diverse activities such as optimizing user interfaces (Johnson, 98-99), which, again, doesn’t fit my rubric of “writing.”

This expansion to the role of technical communicator is not without problems. As noted by Thralls and Blyler, ideologic approaches to technical communication could create an “adversarial relationship” between researchers and businesses who employ technical writers because of the ideologic imperative to enter and affect the communities. Not all businesses want technical communicators who will question the community. Slack and her collaborators note this in stark terms when they quote an industry recruiter as exclaiming “We want robots!” not people with nuanced theoretical training (173). But this conviction seems rooted in the past, in the industrial age. Robots would not be able to perform the nuanced communication necessary today. And, I think it shows a misunderstanding of what holds value. Johnson-Eilola notes that, during the industrial age, the products themselves were important; technical communication was a mere adjunct necessary for new technologies. In the post-industrial age, though, “information is fast becoming the more valuable product” (176). Therefore, as the economy changes from industrial to the post-industrial information economy, so too must technical writers become technical communicators, people more fluent with information and more in tune with the users of that information.

Technical writing was born of the industrial age. The first technical writing classes were created to train engineers to communicate (Connors, 4-5). But, perhaps it is the electric age that created “technical communicators.” The needs of business, science and technology have shifted, and technical communicators are one consequence of that shift. As technical communication navigates this transition, technical communicators are finding more power in the workplace. McLuhan’s electric age paints a rosy picture for the future of technical communcation: “Under electric technology the entire business of man becomes learning and knowing… and all forms of wealth result from the movement of information” (58). With the increase ability to affect the economy, the justification to study and expand technical communication becomes easier. Academics may find more interest in their work and will have less trouble justifying their research. Practitioners may find more power in the workplace as they become vital to the economy.

References

Connors, Robert. “The Rise of Technical Writing in America.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 4-19. Print.

Johnson, Robert R. “Audience Involved: Toward a Participatory Model of Writing.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 92-103. Print.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 176-192. Print.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994. Print

Miller, Carolyn R. “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 48 – 53.

Rutter, Russell. “History, Rhetoric and Humanism.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 20-34. Print.

Slack, Jennifer Daryl; David James Miller; and Jeffrey Doak. “The Technical Communicator as Author: Meaning, Power Authority.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 161-174. Print.

Thralls, Charlotte and Nancy Roundy Blyler. “The Social Perspective and Professional Communication: Diversity and Directions in Research.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Ed. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 125-145. Print.