The technical communicator as participant, facilitator, and designer in public engagement projects

Purpose: This article reports on a study of professional public engagement specialists and their practices within one case of transportation planning. This study moves beyond the Environmental Impact Statement to reveal the practices used in making public engagement an inclusive and dialogic (rather than exclusive and one-way) process. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted over two years and included formal and informal interviews, observations of workplace and public projects, and the collection of project documents. Results: My findings suggest that technical communicators who hope to implement public engagement function across three different roles within the dialogic public engagement process: participant, facilitator, and designer. Conclusions: The roles of participant, facilitator, and designer expand the potential of technical communicators and require an attention to understudied skills in the field of technical communication, including listening and interrogating boundaries.