Taking the Tactical Out of Technical: A Reassessment of Tactical Technical Communication

Abstract

This article interrogates the concept of tactical technical communication specifically questioning the established understanding of de Certeau in the field of technical communication. It argues once readers move beyond the concepts of strategies and tactics, they will find a rich and nuanced explanation of how ordinary people “make do” in everyday life.

Emojination Facilitates Inclusive Emoji Design Through Technical Writing: Fitting Tactical Technical Communication Inside Institutional Structures

“…The tension between the individual and the institution, or the tactic and how it relates to the strategy, is left unexplored in much of the TTC literature. Randall (2022) attributes this troublesome tension, in part, to a theoretical reliance on de Certeau's (1984) distinction between strategies and tactics. In de Certeau's terms, strategies are deployed by organizational or institutional power structures whereas tactics are used by those suppressed under those power structures.…”

“…For de Certeau, tactics are ways for consumers, imbricated in late capitalism ideology, to wrest some freedoms away from institutions and become resistant creators themselves. Randall (2022) qualitatively reviews TTC scholarship, noting that de Certeau's original project was to investigate "… the practices of everyday living in order to understand how people actually behave, dwell in our society" (p. 14). Randall understands de Certeau's original project as useful to TPC scholarship because de Certeau avoids pragmatic utilization, something Randall views as central to much of the TTC.…”