Abstract

Major trends, such as outsourcing and offshoring, and field-specific factors, such as the advent of content management systems, have fundamentally changed technical communication in recent years. These changes have been widely discussed in the literature of the field, and this article traces their impact on technical communicators in Finland, a high-cost country where downturns in the export industry and the downsizing of major employers are currently coinciding. Through the framework of activity theory, the article looks at the historical changes in the industry as sources of tension and contradictions that need to be understood in order to support professionals in the industry. With the help of interview data, the authors explore the tensions experienced by technical communication professionals in the face of such changes. This analysis leads to the formulation of a hypothesis of historical contradictions currently at play in the field of technical communication. Developmental potentials stemming from these contradictions are outlined as potential ways forward for technical communicators who notice similar tensions in their own environments.