Where Do Genres Come From?

Week 3, Session 1

New Digital Genres

Carolyn R. Miller

April 21, 2023 2

Class schedule revision

Week IV: New Genres in Teaching and Learning

Monday, August 6 at 2:30 pm

Plagiarism and the internet, with Prof. Bazerman

Bazerman, "Paying the Rent: Languaging Particularity and Novelty."

Tuesday, August 7, regular time and place

Brooks, "Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Hypertext."

Palmquist, "Writing in Emerging Genres.”

April 21, 2023 3

Today’s agenda

• Shepherd & Watters: cybergenres

• Yates et al.: genres in electronic communication

• Giddens and structuration

• Some comparisons

• Break

• Reports (how many?)

Cybergenres

extant novel

replicated variant emergent spontaneous

Shepherd & Watters, “The Evolution of Cybergenres”

Cybergenres

extant novel

replicated variant emergent spontaneous

Cybergenres

extant novel

replicated variant emergent spontaneous

two different processes

Questions

• Non-digital genres are characterized by <content, form>, digital genres by <content, form, functionality>.

Why do non-digital genres not have functionality?

Questions

• Novel cybergenres “have no real counterpart in another medium.” Do they have antecedents?

• If a genre is “spontaneous” does that mean it has no antecedents?

• Can a “replicated” genre also be spontaneous? or a “variant” or “emergent” genre?

Cybergenres

extant novel

replicated variant emergent indigenous

two different sources

Yates, Orlikowski, & Okamura

labs A B C

teams SG1 SG2 SG3 SG4 SYS DPSnewsgroups (all) announce, reports, headlines,

release, guide, lookfor, etc.

(local) SG1, SG2, etc.

genres all: 7 newsgroup-based genres

SG4: 4 genres

SYS: 5 genres

Yates, Orlikowski, & Okamura

labs A B C

teams SG1 SG2 SG3 SG4 SYS DPSnewsgroups (all) announce, reports, headlines,

release, guide, lookfor, etc.

(local) SG1, SG2, etc.

genres all: 7 newsgroup-based genres

SG4: 4 genres

SYS: 5 genres

Yates, Orlikowski, & Okamura

labs A B C

teams SG1 SG2 SG3 SG4 SYS DPSnewsgroups (all) announce, reports, headlines,

release, guide, lookfor, etc.

(local) SG1, SG2, etc.

genres all: 7 newsgroup-based genres

SG4: 4 genres

SYS: 5 genres

Explicit and implicit structuring

• Explicit structuring intervention by mediators deliberate shaping of genre norms for

community replication, modification, innovation

• Implicit structuring tacit enactment migration, variation

Genre structuring: influences

• Community’s existing genre repertoire

• Tasks at hand

• Users’ prior experiences

• Role and action of mediators

• Context and history of community

• Affordances of media in use

April 21, 2023 15

Anthony Giddens

• 1938–• British sociologist• Central Problems in

Social Theory, 1979• The Constitution of

Society, 1984• Consequences of

Modernity, 1990

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge81.html

April 21, 2023 16

Giddens: basic concepts

• Structure: Rules and resources, organized as properties of social systems. Structure exists only as “structural properties.”

• System: Reproduced relations between actors or collectivities, organized as regular social practices.

• Structuration: Conditions governing the continuity of transformation of structures, and therefore the reproduction of systems.

Central Problems, p. 66

April 21, 2023 17

Giddens: structuration

structuration

rules

resources

rules

resources

April 21, 2023 18

Giddens: duality of structure

structure

agency system

resource outcome

concreteness of action

abstractness of institutions

self other(s)

April 21, 2023 19

Giddens: structuration

• Possibility of change is inherent in every circumstance of social reproduction (210).

• Continuity of social conduct assured through social reproduction (duality of structure).

• Routine action is strongly saturated by the “taken-for-granted,” that which does not require a rationalization or account (218).

April 21, 2023 20

Genre and structuration

• Genre mediates between macrostructures and micropractices (S&S, p. 270)

• “The Cultural Basis of Genre” (Miller, 1994): culture (or society) is constituted and reproduced (in part) in and through the instantiation, reproduction, and modification of genres

Questions for Yates et al.

• What is the basis for identifying genres—in project-wide newsgroups? in local newsgroups?

• How might the method of identification affect the results?

• If the “memo” genre overlaps with “genres having more specific purposes,” is it a really a genre?

Comparison

• Schryer & Spoel

• Shepherd & Watters

• Yates et al.

Comparison

Schryer & Spoel

Shepherd & Watters

Yates et al.

regulated replicated

variant

emergent

explicitly structured

regularized spontaneous implicitly structured

Cybergenres

extant novel

replicated variant emergent spontaneous

explicit structuring

implicit structuring

regulated genres regularizedgenres

April 21, 2023

Assignment for Thursday

• ReadingCosio & Dyson, “Identifying Graphic Conventions …”

Miller & Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action”

April 21, 2023

Assignment for Thursday

• Brief paper (500–700 words)In one brief paragraph describe a digital genre (exigence, audience, constraints). Then in one paragraph each use two of these frameworks to analyze it: regulated or regularized, extant or new, explicit or implicit structuring. In a final paragraph, decide which framework is most useful for this purpose.

Reports

• What issues do the digital media raise for the use and study of genres?