Page 19 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 19
Genre in the Technological
Remediation of Culture
Ana Beguš
Genre represents one of the fundamental concepts of any semiotic analy-
sis. Taking into consideration its various understandings and definitions
(e.g. Bakhtin 1987, Halliday and Hasan 1989, Tynyanov 2019), it can gen-
erally be defined as a textual form established by recurring communica-
tive context; as Bakhtin’s utterance and Benjamin’s form.1 Its attributes
can be explicitly evident in more formulaic examples of texts, e.g. in ad-
ministrative forms or invoices as examples of performative discourse; but
normally its rules are more implicit, though no less binding. Genres de-
fine what one can talk about and how to do it; they already define the par-
ticipant’s roles in communication and therefore function as a discursive
device. The functioning of the genre is always double, i.e. textual and cul-
tural. Genres thus act as a pre-set epistemological frame for participants
in communication.
One of the key factors that influence the development of genres is
technology, understood not as a neutral code, but as a medium (an in-
terface), as understood by the Toronto School of Communication. Mar-
shall McLuhan (1961, 1982, 2001) expresses this substantive character
of technology and its formative influence by saying that the medium2 is
1 The term genre is defined and classified differently depending on the theoretical field
and individual author; in the article I use it more generally in a sense that comes clos-
est to Benjamin’s ‘form’. I am not interested in building a detailed classification of gen-
res, but in understanding how technological remediation affects genre in the sense of
enabling and disabling individual genres.
2 McLuhan deliberately uses the term ‘medium’ to emphasize its mediating nature;
his definition of a medium is much broader than the meaning usually used in com-
Remediation of Culture
Ana Beguš
Genre represents one of the fundamental concepts of any semiotic analy-
sis. Taking into consideration its various understandings and definitions
(e.g. Bakhtin 1987, Halliday and Hasan 1989, Tynyanov 2019), it can gen-
erally be defined as a textual form established by recurring communica-
tive context; as Bakhtin’s utterance and Benjamin’s form.1 Its attributes
can be explicitly evident in more formulaic examples of texts, e.g. in ad-
ministrative forms or invoices as examples of performative discourse; but
normally its rules are more implicit, though no less binding. Genres de-
fine what one can talk about and how to do it; they already define the par-
ticipant’s roles in communication and therefore function as a discursive
device. The functioning of the genre is always double, i.e. textual and cul-
tural. Genres thus act as a pre-set epistemological frame for participants
in communication.
One of the key factors that influence the development of genres is
technology, understood not as a neutral code, but as a medium (an in-
terface), as understood by the Toronto School of Communication. Mar-
shall McLuhan (1961, 1982, 2001) expresses this substantive character
of technology and its formative influence by saying that the medium2 is
1 The term genre is defined and classified differently depending on the theoretical field
and individual author; in the article I use it more generally in a sense that comes clos-
est to Benjamin’s ‘form’. I am not interested in building a detailed classification of gen-
res, but in understanding how technological remediation affects genre in the sense of
enabling and disabling individual genres.
2 McLuhan deliberately uses the term ‘medium’ to emphasize its mediating nature;
his definition of a medium is much broader than the meaning usually used in com-
