<p> This project seeks to understand the relationship between visual rhetoric and power structure between FEMA&rsquo;s Earthquake publications and their audience. Research shows images leave a longer impression on readers than text, causing more studies to focus on visuals rather than just text in technical communication. Author uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the images in relation to text, design, and intended audience to determine what information is being privileged. It is determined that homeowners are being privileged with information over non-homeowners, established through a collection of images and image types. The lack of information for non-homeowners could result in injury or death of potential disaster victims, making it crucial for technical document revision.</p>

<p>Kenneth Bruffee argues that for action to commence and for knowledge to be shared and furthered, communication must successfully occur between two or more individuals. Successful communication requires the reader or listener to interpret a message as the communicator had intended. Technical writers are responsible for composing documents that are easy to interpret and are useable for the intended readers. In contrast, lawyers have a reputation for being poor writers despite the extreme importance well written documents have for their careers and the negative consequences that may occur as a result of poorly written documents. Three lawyers and three legal writing professors were interviewed to learn about lawyers&rsquo; perspectives of the importance of legal writing and how they accommodate primary audiences. Three technical writers and three technical writing professors were also interviewed and asked parallel questions for comparison purposes. The interviews and additional academic resources showed that both technical writers and lawyers value writing in their careers and are responsible for clearly communicating specialized information to their readers. However, lawyers are often responsible for writing contracts that are not necessarily accommodated to the primary audience which makes it difficult for readers of the general public to understand. The thesis concludes that technical writers and lawyers, with the exception of the genre of contracts, use language as a social act to share knowledge and to persuade readers to perform practical tasks. </p>

<p> This dissertation develops an approach to institutional critique that re-works Porter, Sullivan, Blythe, Grabill, and Miles&rsquo; foundational configuration. This project argues that John Dewey&rsquo;s concept of democratic communication articulated in his debate with Walter Lippmann provides a useful heuristic for developing democratic communicative practices that allow citizens and experts to communicate with one another about technical issues such as water quality and safety. Through an analysis of Michigan&rsquo;s emergency manager law, the relationship between citizens and experts that exposed the crisis, and the Flint Water Advisory Task Force&rsquo;s Final Report, this dissertation establishes that citizens must participate in technical decision-making and makes pragmatic suggestions to increase citizens&rsquo; meaningful participation. This project concludes with theoretical and pedagogical implications of a participatory institutional critique.</p><p>