OPAC development as the genre transition process, Part II: OPAC genre analysis

Abstract: This book builds on the author's 1999 award-winning ALISE dissertation titled Planned and Situated Aspects in Interactive IR: Patterns of User Interactive Intentions and Information Seeking Strateg...

Abstract: Special Issue: PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH WITTGENSTEIN SOCIETY 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE: WITTGENSTEIN IN THE 21ST CENTURY © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Abstract: The World Wide Web is growing quickly and being applied to many new types of communications. As a basis for studying organizational communications, Yates and Orlikowski (1992) proposed using genres. They defined genres as, "typified communicative actions characterized by similar substance and form and taken in response to recurrent situations". They further suggested that communications in a new media will show both reproduction or adaptation of existing communicative genres as well as the emergence of new genres. We studied this phenomena on the World Wide Web by examining randomly selected Web pages (100 in one sample and 1000 in a second) and categorizing the type of genre represented. Perhaps most interestingly, we saw examples of genres being adapted to take advantage of the linking and interactivity of the new medium, such as solicitations for help and genealogies. We suggest that Web site designers consider the genres that are appropriate for their situation and attempt to reuse familiar genres.

Abstract: The combination of the computer and the Internet has resulted in the emergence of cybergenre, a new class of genre. Cybergenre can be characterized by the triple , where functionality refers to the capabilities afforded by this new medium. When an existing genre initially migrates to this new medium, it is usually as a faithful reproduction of the existing genre in both content and form with little new functionality. It may then evolve into a variant cybergenre as it incorporates functionality afforded by the computer and Internet. Cybergenres also include novel genres, either not based on previously existing genres or substantially different from existing genres on the basis of increased functionality. These novel genres may have either persistent or virtual instantiations. This paper proposes a taxonomy of these cybergenres and examines the evolution of the news cybergenre and the mathematics dictionary cybergenre within the context of this taxonomy.

Abstract: Part I of this book provides conceptual and analytic tools to show how texts evoke worlds of meaning by representing content and using the resources of language, including relations with other texts, and other media, such as graphics Part II to this point provides tools to examine how texts arise within and influence the living world of people and events This final chapter proposes one more set of conceptual and analytic tools for viewing the work that texts do in society This chapter provides means to identify the conditions under which they accomplish this work; to notice the regularity of texts in carrying out recognizably similar tasks; and to see how specific professions, situations, and social organizations can be associated with a limited range of text types Finally, it provides methods to analyze how the orderly production, circulation, and use of these texts in part constitutes the very activity and organization of social groups The analytical approach of this chapter relies on a series of concepts: social facts, speech acts, genres, genre systems, and activity systems These concepts suggest how people using text create new realities of meaning, relation, and knowledge

Abstract: Under the influence of a new medium, a genre may evolve into variants of the original genre or even into new genre. Genres, even through such evolution, are normally characterized by the tuple , and little attention is paid to the functionality afforded by the new medium. The combination of the computer and the Internet, however, has resulted in the emergence of the cybergenre, a new class of genre characterized by the triple . Users approach instances of cybergenre with certain expectations with respect to functionality, as well as to form and content. This paper examines the "functionality" attribute of various cybergenres in an attempt to identify the essential functionality that this new medium affords. This should help us not only to understand the influence of this medium on genre, but also to use genre effectively in the design of computer and network-based applications.

Abstract: The research reported in this paper is the first phase of a larger project on the automatic classification of Web pages by their genres. The long term goal is the incorporation of web page genre into the search process to improve the quality of the search results. In this phase, a neural net classifier was trained to distinguish home pages from non-home pages and to classify those home pages as personal home page, corporate home page or organization home page. Results indicate that the classifier is able to distinguish home pages from non-home pages and within the home page genre it is able to distinguish personal from corporate home pages. Organization home pages, however, were more difficult to distinguish from personal and corporate home pages.