Tracing Genres through Organizations
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Spinuzzi’s book, Tracing Genres through Organizations, has been a valuable contribution to genre studies in general but is also helpful as a demonstration of how activity theory can usefully inform genre analyses. The book has had a decent level of uptake, as judged by the 337 citations listed on Google Scholar. A quick scan of the results shows uptake in a number of areas—activity theory, genre theory, design studies, technical communication, organizational management, information management, composition, and others. This is not surprising since Spinuzzi’s primary purpose in the book is to examine genre as a mediating artifact in a complex activity system that connects multiple workplaces. Through the genre tracing methodology, Spinuzzi is able to examine the ways in which technical solutions are employed by different users over time and where problems can emerge. Spinuzzi argues that many design studies fall short in two ways. First, in many cases, researchers look for a single trouble sport as a basis for engineering new solutions. Second, too often designers are seen as heroes who swoop in with a one-size-fits-all-solution. Spinuzzi argues that a genre tracing methodology can reveal how destabilizations do not result from a single trouble spot and yet do often have points of connection. He also believes that genre tracing reveals ways that workers invent solutions of their own to manage problems. By paying attention to this, not only can designers build in better solutions with insights from worker innovations, but they can also offer more fluid, less centralized systems to begin with, systems that incorporate workers’ ability to innovate.
To
be precise, genre tracing does not track at a single genre, but rather looks at
a genre ecology. In Spinuzzi’s study, the
core artifact is a genre system for recording and tracking accident statistics
in Iowa, but it is supplemented by other more loosely-linked genres, such as
the accident reports that feed into the system and ad hoc genres such as sticky
notes and photocopies that individual workers used to bridge weaknesses in the
main system. The “tracing” in the title
of the book is carried out in two different ways in the book. First, Spinuzzi traces the evolution of the genre
system over time, from collections of paper reports stored in files to a
mainframe collection system through a MS-DOS database to a database with a GIS
interface. At each level of development,
he also looks at three levels of scope—the macroscopic, the mesoscopic and the
microscopic. By employing different
methodologies—observation, videotaping and coding, stimulated recall,
interviews and so on—Spinuzzi was able to examine how the systems interacted
and how workers interacted with the system in general and moment by moment
interactions with the technology. By
comparing these levels, he identified contradictions (i.e. challenges at the macroscopic
level such as different purposes for using a software), discoordination (challenges
at the mesoscopic level such as misperceiving how a genre functions), and
breakdowns (microscopic problems such as selecting an inappropriate pull-down
menu), may draw on some of the same underlying realities or may have unintended
effects on each other.
Reading Spinuzzi
Previously
I wrote about the experience of reading Foucault. Reading Spinuzzi was a very different
experience, most obviously because the book is very accessible. Spinuzzi explains his theory clearly, he uses
plenty of examples, and he moves forward systematically. To be fair, the book is much more concrete
than Foucault. Spinuzzi is making more
of a methodological argument and less of a theoretical one. But for me, reading Spinuzzi was interesting
in a different way. At some point in my
reading of Spinuzzi, I realized that I was, in part, reading through the genre in my hand to the
genre that a sense lurked behind it, namely, Spinuzzi’s doctoral
dissertation. Because neither the cover
blurb nor the preface stated that the book was a rewriting of Spinuzzi’s
dissertation, I wasn’t certain that this was the case, but I suspected it. As someone who expects to be starting
dissertation research in less than a year, I found myself reading about each
element of his methodology as something that I might potentially appropriate. I sensed strategic decisions, discussions
with mentors, and IRB paperwork. It was
interesting to read the book on two levels.
Incidentally, I did later I get corroboration that the book is a
reworking of Spinuzzi’s dissertation from two places, his blog and an interview
that he did.
Expanding the definition of genre
In
a previous discussion, I considered Miller’s (1984) definition of genre as “a
typification of rhetorical action” (p. 163), and Schryer’s (1993) concept of
genres as “stabilized-for-now or stabilized-enough sites of social and
ideological action” (p. 208). Miller and
Schryer emphasize the rhetorical action that calls on genres to accomplish
things in the world while acknowledging the typified nature of genre as bearing
the traces of historical actions. Spinuzzi’s
(2003) definition of genre also notes the recurrent and typified nature of
genres. For example, he calls a genre “the
product or material residue of problem solving” that “provides a sort of social
memory” (p. 115). But he emphasizes another aspect of genre, its role in
mediating activity. “Genre,” he says, “can
be seen as both the product (object)
and the mediator of repeated activity”
(p. 115, italics in original). It is the
mediating quality of genres that provides the essential building block for the
genre tracing methodology. It is what
makes genres connecting nodes in a genre network, sites of action in the genre
ecology.
Incidentally, talking about network versus ecology reminds me that Spinuzzi has a very interesting discussion on his blog of how he came up with the idea of "ecology" rather than "network" to describe what he was seeing when he was doing this research.
Incidentally, talking about network versus ecology reminds me that Spinuzzi has a very interesting discussion on his blog of how he came up with the idea of "ecology" rather than "network" to describe what he was seeing when he was doing this research.
How Spinuzzi Empowered Me
Interestingly,
Spinuzzi’s book gave me two specific ways I might use the book or its ideas to
improve practice at my institution. Dr.
DePew’s Online Writing Instruction course was the first ODU course that
revealed to me how superior a course website can be over a learning management
system (LMS) approach to course management and communication. Additional courses using this
approach—including this one, Theories of Network—have further convinced me.
After the OWI course, I went to our Moodle support technician on campus and
asked him about using a course website approach. He pointed out that the history department
was doing so through the university website, and I looked into their practice
but discovered that they apparently had issues keeping these pages updated to
the level needed for practical course management. In consequence, I went back to Moodle. However, Spinuzzi’s discussion of open
systems (OS) approaches inspired me to go back to the support technician—maybe
with the book in my hand—to explore ways that we might open our system to more
dynamic interaction—whether through Moodle or another solution. Our tech guy is one of the good guys. He is cheerful, prompt and responsive. I believe he would be open to innovation. I made a list of things that websites allow
that Moodle does not currently allow as a way of opening the conversation. What might result from this, I don’t know,
but I can thank Spinuzzi for inspiring me to open the dialogue.
The
other way that Spinuzzi’s book empowered me came from the discussion of the
Texas Tech English department website.
As it happens, about two days ago, I discovered that the ESL information
on our English department site is extravagantly out-of-date. Since that is a
program that I coordinate, I sent an email to the other ESL teacher and the
department chair about the problem. It didn’t even occur to me that I might be
able to directly make the changes. But
even before finishing my reading of Spinuzzi’s discussion of the “brochureware”
approach of the Texas Tech site (p. 209), it struck me, “Hey! I don’t have to
be powerless here. Why can’t I get
permission to access and update the site myself?” As far as I know, none of my colleagues have
tried to manage the site. We depend on
computer support people and perhaps the department’s office manager, if I’m not
mistaken. But I once developed a website
back in 2001 or 2002 when things were truly clunky, so I imagine I can learn
what it takes to make the changes that we faculty might need to make in our
small department, and I imagine that everyone would welcome having another
person who knows how to do this. As I
read through the rest of Spinuzzi’s example, I also felt that the announcement
mechanism would be a good innovation for our department. While this is not
something that I could develop personally, it might be possible to get it built
in to our site. I know it would be
productive since we have had some challenges with communicating events in the
past. Again, whatever happens, I believe
that going back to my department and asking about how we manage our site and
how we might manage it better will probably be a productive conversation.
References
Miller, C. R. (1984.) Genre as social action. Quarterly
Journal of Speech, 70(2), 151-167.
Retrieved from http://www4.ncsu.edu/~crmiller/Publications/MillerQJS84.pdf
Schryer, C. F. (1993). Records as
genre. Written
Communication, 10(2), 200-234. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/85535463?accountid=12967
Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Tracing genres through organizations: A
sociocultural approach to information design. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
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