Where Do Genres Come From? Week 3, Session 2 New Digital Genres Carolyn R. Miller

June 10, Class schedule revision Week IV: New Genres in Teaching and Learning Monday, August 6 at 2:30 pm, Mini-auditório 1, CAC, 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.

June 10, Todays agenda De Cosio & Dyson, genre definition on websites remediation Miller & Shepherd, blogging as social action comparisons preview discussion of second paper

de Cosio & Dyson Premises definition of genre genre conventions support both production and consumption form more important than content categories: education, commercial, services, personal, culture, sports & entertainment (p. 166, Appendix 2)

de Cosio & Dyson Methods create coding categories select 50 informational websites, 2000 analyze graphic elements analyze navigation analyze information structure

de Cosio & Dyson Conclusions Conventions in printed material are insufficient to define genres in electronic documents. Information structure of sites is not yet clear. Some patterns: lists not prose, no T of C, blue Different kinds of texts, for rapid transactions, for reference and information Strong resemblance between websites and print (newspapers, commerce)

Remediation by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin MIT Press, 2000 Reviewed by Blakesley, KairosReviewed by Blakesley, Kairos Reviewed by Cook, RCCSReviewed by Cook, RCCS

Remediation "the representation of one medium in another" (45). digitized texts remediate print texts word processor remediates typewriter webcam site remediates film novels remediate letters early print remediates medieval manuscripts photography remediates painting film remediates theater computer screen remediates tv screen, desktop tv screen remediates computer screen (to be new)

Remediationhow? Immediacy: remove evidence of mediation to achieve transparency, authenticity, reality Hypermediacy: acknowledge and emphasize acts of representation and mediation

Remediationwhy? Repair inadequacies of earlier media (more real, more direct, more accurate, faster, etc.) (immediacy) Emphasize novelty, innovation Emphasize the process of mediation itself, as an experience of representation (hypermediacy)

Remediationwhy? Transparent [immediate] digital applications seek to get to the real by bravely denying the fact of mediation; digital hypermedia seek the real by multiplying mediation so as to create a feeling of fullness, a satiety of experience, which can be taken as reality. (Bolter and Grusin 53)

Comparison Remediation (Bolter & Grusin) Replication (Shepherd & Watters) Reproduction (Giddens and others) Recurrence (Bitzer, Miller)

Miller & Shepherd Premises definition of genre presumption of genre status new genres are of rhetorical interest because the negotiated balance between stability and change has disappeared

Miller & Shepherd Methods analysis of kairos secondary ethnomethodology: perceptions and reports of users analysis of content analysis of formal features analysis of pragmatic action analysis of ancestral genres determine exigence and social action

Miller & Shepherd Conclusions The exigence is recurrent need for cultivation and validation of the self. That need arises in the culture of mediated voyeurism, relentless celebrity, unsettled boundaries between public and private, and decentralizing technologies. The social action is self-disclosure that intensifies the self. The analysis applies only to personal blogs.

Herring et al. Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences Content analysis of 203 randomly selected weblogs, 2003 Compares empirical evidence with popular claims Examines antecedents

Herring et al. Coded for author characteristics (number, gender, age, etc) blog purpose (filter, personal, etc) temporal features (updating, age) structural features (archives, images, links, comments, etc)

Comparison De Cosio & Dyson, Miller & Shepherd... examine discursive phenomena (genres?) that are changing rapidly. apply to unregulated, implicitly structured genres. fit Shepherd & Watterss categories differently.

Cybergenres extant novel replicatedvariantemergentindigenous Shepherd & Watters, The Evolution of Cybergenres

Cybergenres extant novel replicatedvariantemergentindigenous blogs? websites?

Preview Genres are sites of contention between stability and change (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995). Re-examine (update) personal blog. Explore public-affairs blog. Develop genre theory. Relationship between genre and medium Recurrence, stability, persistence of form

Second paper Schryer & Spoel Shepherd & Watters Yates et al. regulatedreplicated variant emergent explicitly structured regularizedspontaneousimplicitly structured

June 10, 2014 Assignment for Monday Topic Plagiarism, originality, and the internet Reading Bazerman, Paying the rent