By addressing genre systems in a professional setting, Berkenkotter is able to bring together many levels of interaction as well as provide an introduction to activity systems. I hope that she is not oversimplifying when she writes that “contexts are activity systems” and quotes Yrjo Engestrom’s statement that “an activity system integrates the subject, the object, and the instruments... into a unified whole.... Production and communication are inseparable” (331). I interpreted this to mean that genre and genre systems are the instruments of an activity system and that the activity system is what establishes the genre systems.
She uses genre systems as a means of reconciling the everyday practices (micro) of text and discourse with the social structure/discursive system (macro). In her study, the therapists’ notes which translate into medical reports which translate into billing statements comprise the genre system. The genre system resides within the activity system of psychotherapy and they cannot be separated, though they can evolve and be altered. She mentions some principles of genre systems to reinforce this:
- Genre and genre systems both guide interaction and are the results of that interaction (329). The workflow of notes, reports and bills offer the framework during the process and the documentation of the process when they are complete.
- Genre systems are intertextual (330). The notes beget the reports which beget the billing codes. In addition, the necessity of the billing codes requires a recognized diagnosis which is outlined in the report and which the therapist typically considers as they are consulting with the patient and taking notes.
- Genre systems help bring context out of the background. Instead of “following the actors” or “following the texts”, researchers must consider both and bring the players together with the “physical setting, the material practices, and socioeconomic structures...the history of [the profession’s] practices; the participants’ background knowledge; the interpersonal relations...the cotexts, and so forth” (330). In other words, researchers must consider the whole activity system.
Berkenkotter defines the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a meta-genre which serves as a classification system, a common lexicon and as a central text that spawns subgenres in the form of explanatory texts. In addition, the DSM is both evolving in response to political and social factors (the DSM-5 is forthcoming) and serves as an object “around which the discourse of the profession is organized”.
The intertextuality of the genre system of notes, reports and billing is all dependent on the DSM, the power of which becomes clear when Berkenkotter notes that “the psychotherapist’s practice of making notes and reports...begins the work of drawing clients into the systems of reimbursement, health care, research and medical reasoning” and these notes in turn “may influence how the clients themselves may begin to recontextualize their own perceptions of themselves” (341). I found this idea both terrifying and reassuring; terrifying because it sounds like a trap for both therapists and clients, yet reassuring because there is something comforting about being able to classify and find the niche in which you fit. Genre and activity systems seem to be all about finding that niche, yet understanding that the niche may move, change or go away in response to needs and situations.
John B. Killoran: “Self-Published Web Resumes”
As I read this article, I kept wondering if the inclusion of LinkedIn profiles would have altered Killoran’s results in any way. Or, if the rise of LinkedIn might have had an effect on the decline of active self-published web resumes. I am also curious about the professions represented by his selection and whether that had any impact on the results. I’m in the education field. I’ve had a LinkedIn profile since March 2009 and I keep it updated. I don’t troll for connections and most of my connections are in my field or related to me. I’ve never been contacted about a job, but that wasn’t my primary intent in posting my profile. More it was so that if, after receiving my resume, a prospective employer chose to Google me, they would find something that indicated I wasn’t a troglodyte. However, my friend Nate, an “electrical and controls engineer” (i.e. robotics) and a project manager, periodically throws his resume up on Monster.com, just for the thrill of getting job solicitations.
As Killoran mentions, the resume has traditionally been situated in an established genre system of job ads, job applications and various response letters and that “a genre’s performance in a new medium may be due in part to whether the genre is situated within a viable genre system” (427). The success rate of the web resume in Killoran’s study seems to indicate that it may belong to a different genre system than the print resume. Posting a resume on one’s own website is initially labor-intensive and requires periodic maintenance. It is also stepping outside of the traditional genre system of applying for a job, which may make it less effective since the success of the traditional print resume depends on “its kairos - the timeliness of its response - and on the degree to which it ‘plays its partner,’ the job ad” (431). It makes sense that the web resume would be more effective for the self-employed than for the traditional job-seeker since someone who depends on many clients rather than a single employer will want an authoritative and continuously updated repository to supplement any other advertising they might do.
Like Yates and Orlikowski, Killoran also explored the genre characteristics of purpose, participants, theme, context and form. He seems to attempt to isolate the characteristics, stating that “if some genres transplanted to a new medium are actually less successful [than in the previous medium] in accomplishing their purposes, where does that leave genre but without its defining characteristic and presumably determined instead by its medium, its technological container” (426). My question is whether the genre won’t simply become extinct if it fails in its purpose. It seems like it should, and that it would if it weren’t for the “durability” of internet artifacts.
I completely agree with your thoughts in the last paragraph, about the extinction of a genre if it fails in its purpose. There are countless examples of that occurring and probably a lot more that we don't know about. I also appreciate thinking of finding old internet artifacts like finding dinosaur fossils, like digital archaeology.
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