Emerging personal media genres / Marika Lüders (7/10)

Emerging personal media genres

New Media Society onlineFirst, published on May 4, 2010

Marika Lüders

SINTEF ICT, Oslo, Norway

Lin Prøitz

University of Oslo, Norway

Terje Rasmussen

University of Oslo, Norway

Abstract

In this article we argue that the concept of genre has a valuable function within

sociological theory, particularly for understanding emerging communicative practices

within social and personal media. Genres span the whole range of recognizable forms of

communication, play a crucial role in overcoming contingency and facilitate communication.

Their function is to enhance composing and understanding of communication by

offering interpretative, recognizable and flexible frames of reference. As such, genres

generate a sense of stability in modern complex societies. Genres ought to be seen as

an intermediary level between the levels of media and text, however influenced by both.

They operate as interaction between two interdependent dimensions, conventions and

expectations, both of which are afforded by media and specific texts. In this article these

relationships are illustrated through two cases of emerging personal media genres: the

online diary and the camphone self-portrait.

Keywords

blogs, genres, personal media, self-portraits, social media

장르의 개념은 사회학적인 이론과 함께 의미있는 기능을 한다

특히나 요새 떠오르고 있는 사회적이고 개인적인 미디어의 커뮤니티 실천에서

(장르의) 기능은 해석적이고, 인지 가능하고, 유연한 프레임 (레퍼런스의 프레임)을 제공함으로써 커뮤니케이션의 이해하게 하는 것

현대 사회의 복잡함 속에서 안정감을 느끼게 해주는 장르

 

 온라인 다이어리와 자기-묘사적인 캠폰(?)

 

>>self-portrait라고 했어야 했다..ㅠㅠ

Genre is here understood as an interdisciplinary concept with analytical potential as it connects texts and social organization. It helps to clarify relationships between texts and media, as well as between texts and society.

>>장르를 이러한 연결의 관점에서 보는 것도 재밌다

 

 Umberto Eco (1987) noted about Marshall McLuhan’s medium theory that he tended to ignore the intermediary level between medium and message, and thus ended in an unwarranted determinism. A rigorous and sociologically informed media theory needs the concept of genre in order to account for the relationship between society and media in a non-deterministic fashion.

>> ㄷㄷㄷ 움베르트 에코와 맥루한이 같은 시대 사람이었뜸/ ㄷㄷ

 사회와 미디어를 연결 시켜주는 장르

 non-deterministic fashion

   비-결정론적 관습(?)

Rather than focusing on features of singular texts, genre analysis centers on the generality of flows of texts,

Thus genres refer to familiar forms of communication addressed not only by literary studies, but also by a range of academic disciplines, from political science via law and economics to film and media studies and the history of arts.

These analytical demarcation confronts are even more complicated when genres appear in digital media.

• demarcation

  미국식 [_|di:mɑ:r^|keɪʃn] 영국식 [_|di:mɑ:^|keɪʃn] 예문보기

  경계; 구분

  
  

 New media arrive at short intervals and adapt previous genres in new versions. Some change considerably in the adaptation process, while others keep their most recognizable features intact.

>>우왕ㅋㅋ 이게 선행담화체랑도 연결되는 거 아님?

 

That is, use of genres is ‘both constitutive of social structure (as it is instantiated through our observing a genre’s rules for use or conventions) and generative as situated, artful practice’ (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1993: 495, emphasis in original). This is ‘the duality of genres’. The concept of ‘text’ is here used widely, referring to any meaningful ｅxpression or communication sequence. Everyday texts produced by individuals refer to textual practices, which learn from traces of texts and prepare for future textual practices. This entails focus on the relationships between textual features, and on the time/space context.

As Fairclough (1992: 125) argues, genres are an overarching textual category, which corresponds closely to types of social practice. With ‘textual practice’ we refer to both writing and reading, both production and reception of texts.

• overarch

  미국·영국 [òuvərɑ́:rtʃ] 예문보기

  1. …의 위에 아치를 만들다; 지배하다 2. 아치형이 되다

  
  

The question can only be answered by seeing the text in the context of the flow of texts to which it belongs.

>>텍스트를 장르의 관점에서 (장르를 통해서) 규명해야 한다는 것

 

The identification of genres needs to take both changing social expectations and textual conventions into account.

In a relatively ordered society held together by norms and interaction, genres play a pivotal role in connecting micro-practices with macro structures, whether in art, politics or science.

• pivotal

  미국·영국 [^|pɪvətl] 영국식 다른 뜻(2건) 예문보기

  중심(축)이 되는

>Todorow 기대 지평 나왔다ㅋㅋ

The concept of genre as addressed here is analytically useful for several reasons. First, it mediates between media and use, making concrete analysis of the media/society relationship more subtle, as it helps to identify the actual way in which on-going streams of communication in society import features ‘afforded’ by both media technologies and social practices. The novel is situated as a layer ‘between’ the book and the author/reader. The camphone self-portrait is located ‘between’ the mobile camera and the photographer/

viewers. Genres emerge or adapt where digital technologies and society, or the media and the message, meet in the dimension of time. In this regard they are similar to other time-biased phenomena like traditions and rituals.

Second, the concept of genre mediates between the history of arts and the social sciences, allowing for more integrated, interdisciplinary analysis of ｅxpressions from the Greek tragedy, still life and parliamentary debates, to intimate text messages, camphone portraits and personal blogs. Identifying changes in a parliamentary debate and sms-based interaction among close friends contributes substantially to the understanding of where the parliament and friendship are heading as everyday communication forms. Third, the concept of genre is dynamic as it accounts not only for stable communication forms, but also for emergence and transformations. Through a conception of genre we can identify converging and dissolving communication forms.

>>장르 연구가 필요한 이유인듯

As Miller (1994) argues, the term ought to take pragmatically into account the social context of interaction, or what Swales (1990) calls a ‘discourse community’. The discourse community (a working place, a school class, a soccer team) signals distinct values and norms of a social community, which the genres draw on and reproduce (see also Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1993). Genres are social processes, and part of wider discursive ones, which indicate some shared frame of reference, including ways to act on them. Within social institutional settings, textual practices reproduce genres in an ongoing circularity. In other words, text and context interact and condition each other in the production of genres.

We subsequently examine the two main features of our genre model more closely, what we call conventions and expectations, before presenting two examples from our research on new digital genres in daily life. 

• subsequently

  미국·영국 [^|sʌbsɪkwəntli] 다른 뜻(1건) 예문보기

  그 뒤에, 나중에

Several scholars argue that genres are purposive communication (Martin, 1985, 1992; Swales, 1990) without developing this point further. Moreover, the term ‘purpose’ is usually related to the intention of the producer only. However, genres must be understood from the institutional settings of readers as well as writers. Both contribute to the reproduction of genres. In order to connect the concept to social order and change, we would benefit from a sociological term that connects more specifically to social institutions. on a macro level, it is helpful to draw on the notion of social function. The term function is here used heuristically in order to give a plausible comment on the relationship between genres and social continuity and change (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1993; see also Miller and Shepherd, 2004).

>>장르 = 목적적인 커뮤니케이션

 근데 보통 목적은 생산자의 목적

 그런데 우리는 (수용 미학 처럼ㅋ) 독자도 생각해야 하지 않겠뉘?? 사회적 변화들도

• heuristically

  다른 뜻(1건) 예문보기

  발견을 돕게.

This constant self-citation is at times explicit

• citation

  미국·영국 [saɪ^|teɪʃn] 영국식 다른 뜻(1건) 예문보기

  1. 인용구 2. (특히 전시 무공에 대한) 표창장 3. 인용

 

Thus, genres are always meta-communication in their constant reference to their own place in the world of ‘genrefied’ communication.

>>와.. 이 부분 좋은 것 같은데 이 문단 이해가 안간다..

 

Genres are generalized circulations of texts or relatively stable patterns of practices. They are identifiable and thus analyzable forms of interaction, understood as text as practice and vice versa, such as intimate text messages or camphone portraits

<Genre and media>

장르 분석에서 마주하게 되는 문제점

장르와 미디어의 구분

기존 장르와 새 장르 사이의 구별

web-mediated genres

personal diary-like amateur blogs and collective theme-oriented blogs like Slashdot.org seem palpable.

• palpable

  미국·영국 [^|pӕlpəbl] 영국식 예문보기

  감지할 수 있는, 뚜렷한, 손에 만져질 듯한

In practice, genres help enable communication:

<Conventions and expectations>

Conventions refer to intrinsic structures, and define a set of features of style, rhetoric and materiality that ought to appear in the given genre.

>>컨벤션의 정의

Rather than being understood as stable sets of conventions that are associated with a socially ratified type of activity (Fairclough, 1992), conventions should be understood internally as connections between texts.

• ratify(ratified)

  미국·영국 [^|rӕtɪfaɪ] 영국식 중요도 별점 1개 예문보기

  비준하다

  
  

The novel rides on reflections on fictional treatment of universal issues for the human being; the news story genre floats on expectations to construct (or reflect) knowledge about what goes on in the world; the personal blog responds to expectations about what the individual knows and reflects on. These expectations can be examined to uncover the exigence of genres, understood as the ‘objectified social need’ that functions as rhetorical motive (Miller, 1994).

<Two cases of emerging genres>

>>이 부분부터 먼저 읽었어야 하는데...

A number of studies have been conducted on self-writing practices in blogs and the subgenre online diaries (e.g. Brake, 2007; Choi, 2006; Herring et al., 2005; Huffaker and Calvert, 2005; Lenhart and Fox, 2006).

self-writing practices

<<오노.. 인터뷰 연구;;

Expectations towards conventions play a significant role in the production and reception of personal blogs

Online diaries are individually owned and maintained, and concern personal matters.

The private diary follows a set of common conventions, the main theme being life seen from the author’s point of view. In reading and writing online diaries, users can refer to their knowledge of the paper diary.

>>와우 중요

users need to learn the genre conventions, but also emphasize the importance of users developing their own personal style.

2. Camphone self-portraits

>>셀카 찍는 거!!

<Conclusion>

The two cases illustrate how users internalize the conventions of genres, even in de-institutionalized fields where institutional traditions are sparse.

<<이 학회지 좋은 듯 학회지로만 찾아서 더 봐보자

Askehave I and Nielsen AE (2005) Digital genres: A challenge to traditional genre theory, Information Technology and People 18(2): 120–141.

Berkenkotter C and Huckin TN (1993) Rethinking genre from a sociocognitive perspective. Written Communication 10(4): 475–509.

Choi JH (2006) Living in cyworld: contextualising cy-ties in South-Korea. In: Bruns A and Jacobs J (eds) Use of Blogs (Digital Formations). New York: Peter Lang, 173–186.

>>헐 싸이월드 관련 논문ㅋㅋ

Herring SC, Scheidt LA, Wright E and Bonus S (2005) Weblogs as a bridging genre. Information Technology and People 18(2): 142–171.

Lenhart A and Fox S (2006) Bloggers. A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers. Consulted 19 July, 2007. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/186/report_display.asp.

Martin JR (1985) Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Social Reality. Deakin, Vic.: Deakin University Press.

Miller CR (1994) Genre as social action. In: Freedman A and Medway P (eds) Genre and the New Rhetoric. London: Taylor and Francis.

Miller CR and Shepherd D (2004) Blogging as social action: a genre analysis of the weblog. Into the Blogosphere. Consulted 7 March 2009. Available at: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html.

Neale S (1990) Questions of genre. Screen 31(1): 45–66.

Todorow T (1990) Genres in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.