Professional identity on the Web: Engineering blogs and public engagement

Blogs offer a space where engineers can engage with public audiences about engineering topics, challenging and surpassing a deficit model of science communication. Communication that is adapted for a broad audience, discusses topics that are socially relevant, and facilitates participation and dialogue is more likely to be engaging. We examined 14 top engineering blogs to see how engineers present themselves and how they communicate with the public. A qualitative content analysis of the communication, with an eye toward professional identity management, uncovered common themes associated with identity and self-presentation, leading to better understanding of how this unique communication genre serves to reinforce, question, and/or challenge popular representations of engineering identities and ideologies. Our analysis shows that despite the potential of blogs to facilitate engagement, engineers' reliance on an engineering style of communication may fail to engage public readers.