Post on 23-Dec-2015
transcript
Where Do Genres Come From?
Week 3, Session 1
New Digital Genres
Carolyn R. Miller
April 19, 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 19, 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 19, 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 19, 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 19, 2023 17
Giddens: structuration
structuration
rules
resources
rules
resources
April 19, 2023 18
Giddens: duality of structure
structure
agency system
resource outcome
concreteness of action
abstractness of institutions
self other(s)
April 19, 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 19, 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 19, 2023
Assignment for Thursday
• ReadingCosio & Dyson, “Identifying Graphic Conventions …”
Miller & Shepherd, “Blogging as Social Action”
April 19, 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?