The Value of Technical Communication
The idea that technical communication is not valued as much as it should be seems to be a commonplace in our field. Many of the articles we have read in the course thus far trace the history of the growing acceptance of our discipline both within and outside academia, and Slack, Miller, and Doak’s “Technical Communicator as Author” revisits many of the points we saw in Connors.
“Technical Communicator as Author” outlines the evolution of technical communication through the lens of communication theory, delineating three stages of conceptualization: transmission, translation, and articulation. While vestiges of the transmission and especially the translation approaches to technical communication remain prevalent, the authors argue that technical communication as articulation more accurately reflects how communication works. Central to their argument is power. While the transmission approach leaves technical communicators virtually powerless, mere vessels that carry information from sender (engineer) to receiver (user), the translation model stresses “… an ongoing struggle for power, unevenly balanced toward encoding” (167). The technical communicator as translator, then, finds herself in the middle of a negotiation of meanings between sender and receiver. In the articulation approach, however, “… technical communicators are theoretically situated in the process of articulating meaning just as prominently as are the sender and receiver” (172). Here, technical communicators are recognized as authors, with all the power that designation affords.
However, as Johnson-Eilola suggests in “Relocating the Value of Work,” technical communication is often seen as a service or support position – a position in which technical communicators are unable to fully exercise their power as authors. Johnson-Eilola suggests reconfiguring technical communication as symbolic-analytic work, rather than routine or in-service person work, in order to maximize its potential (and power). In order to do so, he highlights four skills technical communicators already possess, to varying degrees: the ability to experiment, collaborate, think abstractly, and think in terms of systems. These skills are broader and more complex than simply knowing how to use a program. Johnson-Eilola admits near the beginning of the article that he questions “… whether [he] should be teaching basic rhetorical, usability, and visual design techniques or if [he] should be concentrating on teaching students application-specific skills …” in specific programs (177). Throughout his article, he makes a convincing case for the former strategy.
Reflecting on my own teaching, I can see the how rhetoric, usability, and visual design are present in our 305 curriculum. Furthermore, collaboration and abstraction are also important components of some of our assignments. Johnson-Eilola’s call for expanded definitions of usability and system thinking are more problematic, however. While acknowledging that “the limiting aspects of the genre of instructional manual are so strong that it is difficult to envision a manual that successfully deemphasized technology use and instead focused on broader issues” (179), Johnson-Eilola argues for such a manual, based on usability that goes beyond simply completing discrete tasks (185). He notes that third-party books often cover the broader issues traditional manuals ignore (180).
Related to expanded approaches to usability is system thinking, which requires thinking outside of narrow boundaries. Again arguing for documents that move beyond simply completing tasks, Johnson-Eilola notes that the current minimalist approach “… disempowers users by assuming as a rule that they already know how to complete their general tasks (writing a memo, compositing a presentation, etc.)” (187). Is it the technical communicator’s job to instruct users how to use a word processing program to create specific kinds of documents? In addition to using built-in templates, users can find instruction on how to do so freely available on the web (and in third-party books). It may be that technical communicators are already doing this work – just not within the confined (in this view) genre of the manual.
Finally, I wonder how much technical communicators have been able to reposition themselves as symbolic-analytic workers since the publication of this article. Our society is more postindustrial than in 1996. Consider Johnson-Eilola’s description of the move toward information and away from production: “Many companies have shifted portions of their revenue streams to providing information and produce little or no products of the industrial type.” He goes on to describe how “high-profile, Web-based companies such as Yahoo, Alta Vista, and eXcite* … excel at arranging, condensing, indexing, and reorganizing information according to the needs of different customers” (180). The explosion of Web 2.0 technologies has further accelerated this move toward an information-based economy.
Combining the approaches outlined in these two articles, part of the value of technical communication lies in its being symbolic-analytic work with an author who articulates meanings. While neither the kind of work nor the presence of an author is unique to our field, we can draw upon the long rhetorical tradition to help us articulate the value and the necessity of our work.
Works Cited
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. 175-192. 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. 160-174. Print.
*If you have time, check out Excite. The design (particularly the icons in the upper right) reminds me of sites from the early 2000s (or maybe earlier).