Carolyn Miller and
Dawn Shepherd: “Questions for genre theory from the blogosphere”
Soon after the first day of this class, before I was
considering almost everything in terms of genre, some coworkers and I went on a
field trip to The Greenville News, to
find out how they’re adapting to the digital world. Just last week, the
newspaper in my former hometown announced that it would cease daily print
publication. I have never had a daily newspaper subscription, though my parents
always have and I still flip straight to the (ever shrinking) funny pages if I’m
at their house for breakfast.
Both of today’s readings take care to mention the
differences between genre and media. The news article is the genre, the newspaper is the medium. Like many people,
I’m interested in the news and I tend to get it in bits and pieces online or on
the radio. I honestly don’t care how I hear about world events, as long as I’m
not completely in the dark. I am interested in the content, not the format. Given
that news format has changed over human history and that the daily newspaper is
a relatively recent innovation, it’s not surprising that online news is edging
the paper version out.
Miller and Shepherd offer several compelling arguments in
favor of the public affairs blog, my favorite of which is that electronic media
“reprise several qualities of oral cultures, including simultaneity of action
and reaction, widespread access, and emphasis on feeling over analysis, and a
weakening of centralized authority” (282). Bawarshi and Reiff say something
similar when they write that researchers are interested in “how digital
contexts for communication alter access to genres, reconfigure constraints
(including time constraints), and bring about new forms of collaboration”
(161). Put that way, it’s almost surprising that any print publication
dependent on timeliness still survives.
Politics and disasters helped foment public affairs blogs,
as did “dissatisfaction with the mainstream media” (M&S 275). While readers
of The Times Picayune are bemoaning
the impending loss of their daily print paper, I can’t help but think that it
was that same paper’s ability to blog that helped earn it a Pulitzer for its
Hurricane Katrina coverage. I was only one of the many who practically lived on
that blog during the time when no other news media could get in or out of the
city. The Greenville News isn’t
ceasing the daily print run yet, but it’s shrinking and they are focusing their
reporting resources on unique, local news. Everything else comes from USA Today.
It seems that the genres aren’t changing as quickly as the
media, but that, as Bawarshi and Reiff write, “new media may be triggering the
modification of existing genres” (167). While we didn’t read Miller and
Shepherd’s blog study, Bawarshi and Reiff mention their claim that “the blog is
a complex rhetorical hybrid with genetic imprints from prior genres” (164).
Miller and Shepherd also remark that “genre change problematizes precisely what
makes genre generic” (264). In other words, if genre is recurrent, typified and
relatively stable (or “stabilized-enough” or “stabilized-for-now”), how does
that reconcile with seemingly rapid change? The antecedents seem to be part of
the answer, though I suspect that the proliferation of technology also helps.
When something hits quickly and spreads like wildfire, it doesn’t have to have
a long shelf life to have an impact.
P.S. I haven't forgotten Schryer and Spoel - they'll be addressed in the next day or so. Hopefully tomorrow.
P.S. I haven't forgotten Schryer and Spoel - they'll be addressed in the next day or so. Hopefully tomorrow.
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ReplyDeleteAn interesting connection with Hurricane Katrina and blogging. Sometimes online coverage is the only place you can get some information.
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