ENGLISHFOR

DIGITALMEDIA

Office:TraianLalescu2a,Room302
OfficeHours:Monday14.0018.00

Phone:0256.40.40.11
Email:daniel.dejica@cls.upt.ro

DanielDEJICA,PhD

EnglishforDigitalMedia

1. Contextofcommunication

http://www.bbcworldwide.com/digital.aspx

Chapteroutline

DefiningDigitalMedia
DigitalContentandGenres
TheDigitalMediaProductionTeam

EnglishforDigitalMedia

1.1. DefiningDigitalMedia
Digital Media is a term which can usually be approached and defined from two
different perspectives. First, digital media may refer to storage and transmission
(hard drives, etc.), and second, it may refer to the product which is in electronic
format. From this second perspective, one can identify two different, yet interrelated
approaches; as such, digital media may refer to

all audio, video or photo content that has been encoded:

Digitalmediareferstoaudio,video,andphotocontentthathasbeenencoded
(digitallycompressed).Encodingcontentinvolvesconvertingaudioandvideo
inputintoadigitalmediafilesuchasaWindowsMediafile.Afterdigitalmediais
encoded,itcanbeeasilymanipulated,distributed,andrendered(played)by
computers,andiseasilytransmittedovercomputernetworks.Examplesofdigital
mediatypesinclude:WindowsMediaAudio(WMA),WindowsMediaVideo
(WMV),MP3,JPEG,andAVI.
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/what-is-digital-media-2)

a combination of audio, video, photo and/or textual content which is shared

virtually:

Digitalmediaisanymediathatiselectronic.
(http://www.optimum7.com/internet-marketing/sem/what-is-digital-media-and-how-can-it-benefit-you-inmarketing.html)

Digitalmediaisthedifferentplatformsonwhichpeoplecommunicate
electronically.
(http://www.derekflanzraich.com/2010/04/what-is-digital-media/)

DigitalMedia[]anyinformationthatiscreatedandsharedvirtuallyratherthan
physically.
(http://www.communitechhub.ca/?page_id=608)

Digitalcontentisanythingthatcanbepublished.Followingthislineofthinking,it
issafetosaythatifyouareontheinternet,mostlikelyyouarelookingat,watching,
orlisteningtoapieceofdigitalcontent.
(http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=79501)

EnglishforDigitalMedia
In this course book, digital media is used in this second wider conception, i.e. a

combination of audio, video, photo and/or textual content which is shared virtually,
and English for Digital Media refers specifically to creating professional texts in
English for this virtual environment.

1.2. Digitalcontentandgenres

Very briefly, digital content is anything which can be published, including animation,
audio, graphics, images, video and text. Adam Vincenzini identified 50 examples of
digital content which is frequently published or created:

50examplesofdigitalcontent
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.

Atweet(inanyiteration)textonly,textandlink,reply,retweetetc
ATwitterlistthesesaysomethingaboutyouwhenmadepublic
Afacebookstatusupdatetextonly,textandlinketc
Afacebooklike(yep,thatiscontentandacontributiontotheecosystem)
Aphoto/image
Avideo
Ablogpost
Acollectionoflinks
Anaudiofile
Agraphic/chart
Aquestion/aseriesofquestions
Ananswertoaquestiondirectlyorindirectlyposed
Numbers/stats/factsanyformofdata
Aninterview
Aprofileperson,company,groupetc
Areportonanevent,decision,development
Asurvey/poll
Tips/hints/howtoguides
Guestmaterial
Opinions/views
Lists(likethisone!)
Solutionstoaproblem
Apresentationi.eslideshare
Resourcesi.etoolstohelpyougetsomethingdone
Personalexperiences/insights
Casestudies/reallifeexamples
Reviews/ratings
Tests/experiments
3

EnglishforDigitalMedia
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.

Alocationupdatei.e.Afoursquarecheckin
Acomment,anywhere
Afictionalstory
Alivechat/webinar
Historicalcontent/futurepredictions
Anadvertisement
Eventpreview
Adiary
Whitepapers
Anebook
Rankings/index
Testimonials
Games
Widget/gadget/plugin/Facebookapplication
Ascreencast(screenr.comisagreattoolforthis)
Bookmarksi.e.delicious
Facts/trivia
Biographies
Screensaver/wallpaper
Adownload
AWikipediaentry
Aninvitation
(http://www.commscorner.com/2011/01/what-is-digital-content-50-examples-to.html#.T-6VyN0oFnY)

Other applications of digital media include creating content for mobile applications,
gaming, cinema, etc:

(http://www.communitechhub.ca/?page_id=608)

EnglishforDigitalMedia
As it can be seen, in these conceptions, digital content can vary from a simple like on
a Facebook page to creating content for cinema, web-pages, gaming, including
complex (3D) animations and text. What is common to all of these cases is that text
is produced under various shades of complexity.
When speaking about the language of this new media, Andrew Dewdney and Peter
Ride (2006: 33) claim that it is still at an early stage of development. What they mean
is that, for both existing and newly created digital content, texts may be far from
being produced following some strict norms or guidelines pertaining to form and
structure. Moreover, even if we live in a global age, the ways or styles in which digital
content is produced may differ from culture to culture (e.g. Japanese cartoons vs.
American cartoons), just in the same way in which the ways or styles of discourse or
texts are particular for every culture (Brake et al., 1995). The same idea is expressed
by Trosborg (2000) in her approach to genres. According to her genre peculiarities
are to be found in every culture and they should make the object of and be treated in
the sphere of cultural studies. But what are genres?
The word genre comes from the French (and originally Latin) word for 'kind' or
'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory, and more
recently linguistics, to refer to a distinctive type of text. In linguistics, genre is defined
in a number of different ways by different linguists. For Swales (1990),
A genre comprises a class of communicative events the members of which share
some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert
membersoftheparentdiscoursecommunity,andtherebyconstitutetherationalefor
the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and
influences and constrains choice of content and style. Communicative purpose is
bothaprivilegedcriterionandonethatoperatestokeepthescopeofagenreashere
conceivednarrowlyfocusedoncomparablerhetoricalaction.Inadditiontopurpose,
exemplarsofagenreexhibitvariouspatternsofsimilarityintermsofstructure,style,
content andintended audience.Ifall high probabilityexpectations arerealized,the
exemplar will be viewed as prototypical by the parent discourse community. The
genre names inherited end produced by discourse communities and imported by
othersconstituteavaluableethnographiccommunication,buttypicallyneedfurther
validation.(Swales,1990:58)

According to this extended definition, genre is defined as a class of communicative

events having a shared set of communicative purposes and similar structures,
5

EnglishforDigitalMedia
stylistic features, content and intended audiences. In addition, Swales notes that a
genre is usually named and recognized by members of the culture in which it is
found.
Bhatia (1993) continued and extended Swales work on genres. For him,
A genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of
communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of
theprofessionaloracademiccommunityinwhichitregularlyoccurs.Mostoftenitis
highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions
in terms of their intent, positioning, form, and functional value. These constraints,
however, are often exploited by the expert members of the community to achieve
private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purpose(s). (Bhatia,
1993:15)

Even if he agrees that each genre is an instance of a successful achievement of a

specific communicative purpose using conventionalised knowledge of linguistic and
discoursal resources, Bhatia considers that Swales underplays psychological factors
and, in that way, undermines the importance of tactical aspects of genre construction,
a factor which plays a significant role in the concept of genre as a dynamic social
process, as against a static one. Using experienced news reporters as an example,
they may be able to insinuate their own preferred political perspectives under the
appearance of objective news reports.
Another linguist who contributed with his view to defining the concept is J. R. Martin
(1985):
Agenreisastaged,goaloriented,purposefulactivity,inwhichspeakersengage
as members of our culture.... Virtually everything you do involves you
participatinginoneorothergenre.Cultureseeninthesetermscanbedefinedas
asetofgenericallyinterpretableactivities(Martin1985:25).

Martin points out that speakers use language to accomplish culturally goal-orientated
tasks and in so doing are obliged to use genres. Thus when shopping, a shopper
converses with a sales person in a particular genre to achieve his/her purchase.
Less technically, as Marin puts it, genres may be how things get done when
language is used to accomplish them. This leads to the acknowledgement that there

EnglishforDigitalMedia
are as many genres as there are recognisable activity types in a culture. Some
examples are:

Literary genres: poems, short-stories, romantic novels, whodunits, ballads,

sonnets, fables, comedies, tragedies, etc.

Popular written genres: instructional manuals, newspaper articles, magazine

reports, recipes, etc.

Educational genres: lectures, tutorials, report/essay writing, leading seminars,

examinations, text-book writing, etc.

Business genres: business letters, advertisements, brochures and booklets,

catalogues, annual reports, meetings, minutes, etc.

Legal written genres: statutes, contracts, deeds, wills, briefs, etc.

Other genres: personal letters, press releases, sermons, obituaries, weather

reports, etc.

All cultures have a genre potential, i.e. linguistically-achieved activity types

recognised as meaningful in a given culture. Any changes in activities of such type
will normally result in a change of genre. According to Trosborg (2000: 190),
translators in particular have to be aware of the fact that although the same genres
may exist in different cultures, they may in fact be and often are structured or
composed in different ways. Trosborg considers that genre conventions are culturespecific and exemplifies this claim by stating that the genres weather report and
death announcement exist in a Danish as well as in a British context, but they
observe quite different conventions in the two cultures.
Attempts to classify text types had been made even before the concept of genre
existed as such. An example would be in literature where divisions were made
between poetry, prose and drama, each of these genres displaying further subclassifications, i.e. tragedy and comedy in the case of drama. Even if one can
differentiate between major genre categories, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate
or classify sub-genres.
7

EnglishforDigitalMedia
For Chandler (1997) genre classification is not a neutral and objective procedure
mainly for two reasons. First, there are no clear maps of the system of genre within
any medium, and second, since there is often considerable theoretical disagreement
about the definition of specific genres, one theorist's genre may be another's subgenre or even super-genre (what is technique, style, mode, formula or thematic
grouping to one may be treated as a genre by another).
Bhatia (1993) proposes that for the analysis of unfamiliar genres, one should
consider some or all of the following steps, depending on the purpose of the
analysis, the aspect of the genre that one intends to focus on, and the background
knowledge one already has of the nature of the genre in question:

Placing the given genre-text in a situational context

Surveying existing literature

Refining the situational/contextual analysis

Selecting corpus

Studying the institutional context

Levels of linguistic analysis

o Level 1: Analysis of lexico-grammatical features
o Level 2: Analysis of text-patterning or textualization
o Level 3: Structural interpretation of the text-genre

With regard to genres peculiarities, most of the research in the field has undergone
in the direction of genres structures (Kaplan, 1972; Clyne, 1981, 1987). In a
research study of the essays of foreign students in the United States, Kaplan (1972:
257) found four kinds of discourse structures that contrasted with English linearity:
1. parallel constructions, with the first idea completed in the second part;
2. circularity, with the topic looked at from different tangents;
3. freedom to digress and to introduce extraneous material;
4. similar to (3), but with different lengths, and parenthetical amplifications of
subordinate elements.
The discourse types which Kaplan identified are particular to the genetic language
types: (1) Semitic, (2) Oriental, (3) Romance, and (4) Russian.
8

EnglishforDigitalMedia
Clyne (1987: 78-79) was also interested in how genres differ from culture to culture.
He put up a list of register difficulties Anglo-Saxon students might encounter when
entering a German university. According to him, the German academic register is
marked by:
1. agentless passives and impersonal and reflexive constructions:
A general concept recommends itself.
2. hedged performatives and passive infinitives:
We can predict general agreement.
A group of decisions is to be characterized as aggression.
3. nominalizations and compound words
4. syntactic complexity (German syntactic constructions not shared with
English: participial clauses and left-branching embedding):
That this publication, which only now when the
Results already anyhow known are appeared has
It is not the purpose of this presentation to explore in depth ways of genre
classification or peculiarities, or to find the best definition of this concept; to
summarize, genre is a type of text that has certain goals and characteristics

sufficient to give it certain individuality and differentiate it from other texts. It is in this
conception that the term genre will be used in this course book.

1.3. Thedigitalmediaproductionteam
Who creates digital content? The answer is
very simple: everyone. Everybody who
experienced the World Wide Web
published content at a certain point in one
form or another, even if most people are
not aware of it: from tweeting to updating
the status on Facebook, from uploading
photos or videos to writing blogs, people
take the role of content creators. However,

http://drenalinproductions.biz/wpcontent/uploads/2009/10/DigitalMedia.jpg

EnglishforDigitalMedia
what makes the difference is the ability of writing an academic or professional blog
instead of a regular one, producing a professional advertising text for a company on
the web instead of sharing some thoughts on the personal webpage, or writing
sophisticated menus and help or support pages for software applications instead of
publishing a text using an online text editor. Persons which display such writing
abilities are called digital writers, professional writers or professional communicators.
In this course book we shall use the term professional communicator because such
a specialist, in addition to mastering written texts, is also able to produce and deliver
digital content orally, i.e. professional presentations.
However, the professional communicator, who is a specialist in producing and
delivering text content, has limited abilities when it comes to developing complex
digital projects which include also audio, video or photo content. Depending on the
type of digital content and on the nature of the project, the professional
communicator may team up with one or several of the following specialists (Garrand
2006: 57):

Writer
ContentStrategist
InstructionalDesigner
InformationArchitectorInteractiveArchitect
InterfaceDesigner
GameDesigner
UsabilityExpert
SubjectMatterExpert
BusinessStrategist
ArtDirector/CreativeDirector/GraphicArtist
Animator
ProjectManager
Video/AudioDirector/Developer
Photographer/Videographer
VoiceTalentandActors
Programmer/Coder
ProductManager

10

EnglishforDigitalMedia

Sources

References

1.

AndrewDewdneyandPeterRide.2006.TheNewMediaHandbook.NewYork:Routledge.
2. Bhatia, V.J. 1993. Analysing Genre. London: Longman.
3.

Brake, T., D. Medina-Walker and T. Walker. 1995. Doing Business Internationally: The guide to
Cross-Cultural Success. Burr Ridge. IL: Irwin.

4.

Chandler, D. 1997. An Introduction to Genre Theory. Available at http://www.aber.ac.uk/

media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html [August 2005].

5.

Clyne, M. 1981. Culture and Discourse Structure, in Journal of Pragmatics. 5/1981, pp. 61-66.

6.

Clyne, M. 1987. Discourse Structure and Discourse Expectations Implications for AngloGerman Academic Communication in English, in Smith, L. (ed.) Discourse Across Cultures
Strategies in World Englishes. New York: Prentice Hall, pp. 73-84.

7.

Garrand,Thimoty,2006.WritingforMultimediaandtheWeb,APracticalGuidetoContent
DevelopmentforInteractiveMedia,3rded.,Elsevier.

8.

Kaplan, R.B. 1972. Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education, in Croft, K. (ed.)
Readings on English as a Second Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp: 245-62.

9.

Martin J. R. 1985. Factual Writing: exploring and challenging social reality. Deakin University,
Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press.

10. Swales, J. 1993. Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

11. Trosborg, A. (ed.). 1997. Text Typology and Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Webography
DigitalMedia

http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/whatisdigitalmedia2
http://www.optimum7.com/internetmarketing/sem/whatisdigitalmediaandhowcanit
benefityouinmarketing.html
http://www.derekflanzraich.com/2010/04/whatisdigitalmedia/
http://www.communitechhub.ca/?page_id=608
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=79501

DigitalContent
http://www.commscorner.com/2011/01/whatisdigitalcontent50examplesto.html#.T
6VyN0oFnY
http://www.communitechhub.ca/?page_id=608
http://www.bbcworldwide.com/digital.aspx
http://drenalinproductions.biz/wpcontent/uploads/2009/10/DigitalMedia.jpg

Furtherreading

1.

Mehler A., S. Sharoff and M. Santini (eds), 2010. Genres on the Web: Computational Models
and Empirical Studies. Springer.
11