Are Automated Genres Still Genres?

Clay SpinuzziUniversity of Texas at Austin

clay.spinuzzi@mail.utexas.eduTwitter: @spinuzzi

• (firstname) (lastname) is (adjective). (pronoun) (verb) the (noun).

• Going to watch (movie name), (firstname) (lastname) r u ready?

• (firstname) (lastname) thinks I'm (noun) and (noun).

Genre as Social

•North American Genre Theory

•Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS; Artemeva, Freedman, Schryer, Smart)

•Writing, Activity and Genre Research (WAGR; Russell)

“Regulated resources refer to knowledge, skills, and language behaviors that are recognized and required by a field or profession. Regularized resources ... refer to strategies that emerge from practice situations and are more tacit.”Schryer and Spoel (2005, p.250)

The Case: Search Engine Optimization

Spinuzzi, C. (2010). Secret sauce and snake oil: Writing monthly reports in a highly contingent environment. Written Communication, 27(4), 363-409.

Search Engine Optimization

“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via ‘natural’ or un-paid (‘organic’ or ‘algorithmic’) search

results ...”

Wikipedia, “search engine optimization”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/hidden-gay-slur-search-terms-get-campaign-site-blacklisted.ars

Projects at SemoptcoLaunch: Kick off campaign, examine needs,

formulate keywords and goals, plan goals.•Account manager and 1-2 specialists•Small set of standard milestones•About 4 weeks

Maintenance: Analysis, reporting, meeting, link building.•Primarily a specialist; “lone wolf”•Weekly, monthly, sometimes yearly cycles•Periodic coordination with account manager•No milestones - but long-term performance goals and constant problem-solving

Genres: types of texts, responses to recurrent situations, recognizable by their

readers and writers.

Competitors table Social bookmarks

Action Items in Semoptco's

monthly reports“Report cards”

 Voices and Choices

• Authoritative Voices

o Authorial Discretiono Official/Unofficial,

Regulated/Regularized

Competitors table Social bookmarks

Action Items in Semoptco's

monthly reports“Report cards”

• Operational Choiceso Operational Discretiono Generic/Self-Programmable

Authoritative Voices

(Authorial Discretion)

Unofficial genres

Competitors table

Social bookmarks

Official genresAction Items in

Semoptco's monthly reports

“Report cards”

Official Unofficial Source

Monologic (one logic or voice)

Dialogic (Many logics or voices) Bakhtin 1981

Authoritative (cultural imperative)

Internally persuasive (private intentions) Dias et al. 1999

Regulated Regularized

Schryer & Spoel 2005; Schryer,

Lindgard & Spafford 2007

Stability / Regularity Change / Flexibility

Berkenkotter & Huckin 1995; Devitt 1991; Spinuzzi 2003;

Starke-Meyerring 2010

Explicit Tacit Schryer & Spoel 2005

Operational Choices(Operational discretion)

Self-Programmable

(High Operational Discretion)

Generic(Low Operational

Discretion)

Competitors table Social bookmarks

Action Items in Semoptco's

monthly reports“Report cards”

“Self-programmable labor has the autonomous capacity to focus on the goal assigned to it in the process of production, find the relevant information, recombine it into knowledge, using the available knowledge stock, and apply it in the form of tasks oriented toward the goals of the process. ...” Castells 2009, p.30.

“... tasks that are little valued, yet necessary, are assigned to generic labor, eventually replaced by machines, or shifted to lower-cost production sites, depending on a dynamic, cost-benefit analysis.”Castells 2009, p.30.

Generic Self-Programmable Source

Low-skilled Multiskilled Castells 1998, p.361Automated or low

cost Specialists Castells 2003, p.94

Focus on tasks; receive and execute

signals

Focus on goal; generate own tasks

to achieve; autonomous

Castells 2006, p.10

Routine, repetitive tasks

Problem-solving, creating knowledge Castells 1996, p.242

Predictably transform inputs to

outputs (low discretion)

Coevolve (high discretion)

Castells 1998, p.361; 2003, pp.90-

91; 2009, p.30

Formalizable (explicit)

Unformalizable (tacit) Castells 1996, p.242

Low value High value Castells 1996, p.243

Terminal learning Lifelong learningCastells 1998,

p.361; 2003, pp.90-91

Genre Development Across Two Dimensions

Self-programmable Generic

Unofficial (regularized

)

Competitors table (2010)Barbara’s sticky note

(2003)Handwritten notes in the

NOC (2008)

Social bookmarks (2010)

Yahoo maps of partners’

infrastructures (2008)Universal Service Fund

calculation spreadsheet (2008)

Official (regulated)

Action Items in Semoptco's monthly

reports (2010)City engineers’ reports

(2003)F1 notes (2008)

“Report cards” (2010)PC-ALAS reports (2003)

Phone bills (2008)

Implications for Writing in Knowledge Work Organizations

Integrated writers

Integrated writing

The integration of distributed work

(With Eva-Maria Jakobs, University of Aachen)

Integrated writers

•“professionals-who-write” rather than professional writers

•writing is seen as less important and unloved, yet it is vital

•knowledge workers who own processes

•combine knowledge, methods, and information with their work on those processes

Integrated writing•products are customized for specific

customers through textual information to create specific value for that customer

•parts of writing are automated

•streams of information are integrated to quickly generate and manage textual knowledge

•Elements are assembled, recombined, and customized

Integration of distributed work

•tying together distributed, disparate people and systems so that information can flow through and bring value to different contexts

• involves mapping genre systems across contexts

•populations require more bundled, coordinated services from provider consortia

Integrating work…

… involves rapidly developing genres, especially automated genres, to perform that integration.

Questions?