6.12 Reading Response

Distributed Cognition & Activity Theory

Texts:
Hutchins, How a Cockpit Remembers Its Speeds

In his article, Hutchins attempts to illustrate distributed cognition by examining the cognitive operations of landing a plane, specifically how pilots coordinate activity, technologies, and media and how this process contributes to the cockpit system. Although his analysis is very long, detailed, and somewhat complicated, I will attempt to briefly summarize here Hutchins’ main points in order to illustrate how they display distributed cognition and ultimately relate to our work in this class.

Distributed CognitionBecause many of us are not familiar with cognitive theories, I decided to do a little research into cognition to provide some background to understand better what Hutchins was talking about. By definition, distributed cognition is “a branch of cognitive science that proposes cognition and knowledge are not confined to an individual; rather, it is distributed across objects, individuals, artefacts, and tools in the environment” (“Distributed Cognition”). This theory views human knowledge and cognition as not being confined to the individual, but rather strewn throughout a system, distributed by placing memories, facts, and/or knowledge on the objects, individuals, and tools in an environment ("Socially distributed cognition”).This system, then, is seen as a set of representations where an interchange of information takes place either in the mental space of participants or external representations in the environment ("Socially distributed cognition”).

This framework looks at the coordination between individuals, artifacts and the environment in order to express cognition as “the processing of information occurring from interaction with symbols in the world” ("Socially distributed cognition”). Its overall goal is to explain “how distributed units are coordinated by analyzing the interactions between individuals, the representational media used, and the environment within which the activity takes place” (“Distributed Cognition”). This ties into how Hutchins mentions that the article presents “a theoretical framework that takes a distributed socio-technical system rather than an individual mind as its primary unit of analysis” (Hutchins 265). Like he mentions, the unit of analysis in distributed cognition focuses on “systems that dynamically reconfigure their sub-systems to accomplish functions individuals, artifacts, their relations to each other” (“Distributed Cognition”).

Therefore, because it emphasizes the social aspects of cognition, the theory of distributed cognition can serve as a “useful descriptive framework that describes human work systems in informational and computational terms” (“Distributed Cognition”), explaining why Hutchins uses the cockpit example as an effective way to show his point.

Key PointsIn his article “How a Cockpit Remembers its Speeds,” Hutchins examines commercial airline cockpits as cognitive systems in an attempt to illustrate that the cognitive properties of systems are not due to the sum of individual processes. He points out that “systems that are larger than an individual may have cognitive properties in their own right that cannot be reduced to the cognitive properties of individual persons” (Hutchins 266). Hutchins further argues that “rather than trying to map the findings of cognitive psychological studies of individuals directly onto the individual pilots in the cockpit, we should map the conceptualization of the cognitive system onto a new unit of analysis: the cockpit as a whole" (267).

To then demonstrate this, Hutchins continues with his own analysis of the cockpit. He points out certain cockpit operations and interactions deal with how “information is represented and how representations are transformed and propagated through the system” (Hutchins 286-7). In a thoroughly abridged summary of his analysis, Hutchins explains that pilots must perform a variety of operations in order to land a plane safely, including decreasing speed, maintaining lift, and changing the shape of the wings. These operations involve a range of cognitive, perceptual and memory tasks. Thus, in order to do all of these, he describes that a variety of things take place in the cockpit: calculating proper speeds based on weight, handling and setting physical markers (speed cards and bugs), looking at dials and instruments, verbal communication, etc.

Let’s look at memory tasks as an example. While memory is normally thought to be an individual and internal psychological function, memory processes can actually be distributed among human agents or between them and external representational devices (Hutchins 284). In the case of the cockpit, while the memory process emerges from the activity of the pilots, so much of the memory function takes place outside of the individual (286). The “memory tasks in the cockpit may be accomplished by functional systems which transcend the boundaries of the individual actor” (Hutchins 284).  Instead of being primarily individual, remembering is a function of the system. It is achieved through interaction of the pilots and factors in their environment.

The pilots use both internal and external cognitive representations, the latter resulting from the system’s representations and media. There are a variety of devices that participate in this functional system to accomplish memory tasks. Hutchins explains that these things, such as the physical markers and verbal exchanges, are not simply memory aids, but devices that permit reconfigurations of functional systems. For example, adding speed bugs to systems doesn’t alter the participants’ memories, but instead permits “a different set of processes to be assembled into a functional system that achieves the same results” (Hutchins 283). The speed bugs don’t actually help the pilots remember speeds; they are part of the process for how the cockpit system remembers speeds (283).

Technological devices, interactions, and representations of different media affect the flow of information and give the cockpit system its unique properties (286, 287). All together, the way these various elements  interact and function within the cockpit system allow the operations necessary to land safely be distributed not individually, but across the system temporally, socially, spatially, and perceptually. By distributing these various operations between participants and objects, individuals are assigned less tasks and can more easily manage them. Hutchins says “a change in the nature of the representation of information results in a change in the nature of the cognitive task facing the pilot” (283). A distribution of cognitive labor between pilots and devices makes the demands made on the individuals are more easily managed.

In somewhat of a summary, Hutchins is arguing that cognitive activity is not exclusively internal so we cannot look at it individually. Rather it relies on the situational environment so we must look at it as a functional system, paying attention to all of the actors, representations, and media at play.

Connections to Activity Theory Hutchins’ point of transferring the focus from an individual to larger system ties in directly to our study of activity systems. He attempts to illustrate how factors in an environment can provide various necessary parts, and I recognized how many of the things he points out could be identified as part of an activity system. For example, the pilots could be seen as the subjects and the motivation or outcome would be landing the plane safely. Mediating tools would be the various devices they use, such as the speed bugs and cards and also their verbal communication. Rules would be some of their memory (or past experience) about how to land the plane, also the necessary speeds and weights, and aviation regulations. The division of labor would be how all of the necessary operations are distributed among the crew and their technologies/media. These are just a few of the things I notice, but obviously there are many more. Either way, how distributed cognition looks at the representation, transformation, and dissemination of information across a system is much like how we look at all of the elements in an activity system. It is how they all work together that we should focus on to understand it, not just one individual part. By looking at systems as a whole, through either perspective, we can better analyze and understand various parts of the system and how they interact and play a role in the larger situation.

Works Cited
“Distributed Cognition (DCog).” Learning-Theories.com Knowledge Base and Webliography. Learning Theories, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.learning-theories.com/distributed-cognition-dcog.html>.

Hutchins, Edwin. “How a Cockpit Remembers Its Speeds.” Cognitive Science 19 (1995): 265-288. Print.

"Socially distributed cognition." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 March 2012. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socially_distributed_cognition>.

5.31 Reading Response

Texts:
Bawarshi & Rieff: Chap 9: Public and New Media Contexts
Miller & Shepherd: Blogosphere

Bawarshi and Rieff open chapter 9 by mentioning that “genres function as sites of ideological action” (151), immediately leading me to think again about the discussion we had on ideology and genre in class. When discussing the shifting and complex relationship of participants in a public genre system, Bawarshi and Rieff point out that while “generic encompassment preserves the community and goals of the participants, it also regenerates the genre, thus regenerating the community and mediating between ‘outlanders’ and ‘inlanders’” (157). I think that this is important because we can see how the ideologies encompassed in these public genres plays a role in contributing to a sort of social hierarchy; this connects to our discussion of the constraints that genres can impose. By mediating between insiders and outsiders, genres allow their users to establish kind of a dominance or display a sort of power relationship.

Another point I found interesting was that while genres can constrain action or change, they can also bring about changes in behavior or public policy (158). This shows the contradiction that they can be both limiting and enabling at the same time. Bawarshi and Rieff explain that the social function of public genres is to bring about action and/or change (159). Genres both enable participation in public processes and limit intervention and social action (159).

I found chapter 9 particularly interesting in its discussion on genres and new media because this ties into what I am focusing my genre analysis on. I’m looking at online news articles and I am particularly interested in how this context differs compared to that of the print articles. In my analysis I’ve already noticed a variety of elements that have changed in the news article genre just because of the medium shift. Bawarshi and Rieff mention various studies that explore how print genres are imported into new mediums and how genres may develop or emerge in electronic environments (160). New electronic technologies have increased demand for more efficient and effective forms of interaction (166), changing our previous expectations of genre. They mention “genre re-mediation,” which is “how familiar genres are imported into new mediums,” and how new ways of communicating through new media have changed the “generic landscape” (160). Bawarshi and Rieff point out that not only is this remediation important, but its also interesting how these new digital contexts change access to genres, reconfigure constraints, and create new forms of collaboration (161).  The changes brought about by technology and new media literacies have prompted multimedia and multimodal works, in turn leading to hybrid genres (160-1). Problems and opportunities are brought up by this “recontexctualization” as multimedia and multimodal texts “interact within new genre ecologies and systems and genres media discourse activities across contexts and medium (170). To look at this issue, Bawarshi and Rieff argue that we must look at how existing genres and genre systems are imported, how they are improvised, and learn about new and emerging genres (170). I think that my genre analysis will tie into exactly what Bawarshi and Reiff are talking about and I am interested to see how my work compares to what others have found in similar situations.

5.30 Reading Response

Texts:
Shryer & Spoel: Genre Theory Health Care

Two concepts that I found very interesting in this reading were how power and hierarchy and also unpredictability tied into identity formation. Issues of identity seem important to look at, particularly in this field, because of the hierarchies and power relationships that are inevitable and inherent in the workplace. Genres can serve as “mediating tools that simultaneously structure and constrain the possibilities for rhetorical action and afford opportunities for the strategic improvisation for agency in the process of identity formation” (271). Also, the tensions and improvisations of each genre’s performance makes the rhetorical shaping of identity unpredictable (271).

Schryer and Spoel explain that “some genres exist in a relationship of power with other genres” because they also regulate and control them in addition to contributing to internal regulated and regularized resources (250). In connection to activity theory, the tools that we use in an attempt to pursue our objectives helps to internalize the values, practices, and beliefs we associated with our social situations (254). This encasing of ideology contributes to enforcing those power relationships. Already established genres are social structures that provide both resources and constraints that shape the behavior of people in the workplace (253). The workplace seems like an obvious place for power relationships and hierarchy just because of management and different positions – just the way it is set up – but it is also interesting to think about how these genres also can contribute to this by imposing certain constraints.

The discussion of how health-care communities continually work on professional identity formation as they participate in the field’s discursive practices seems like it would also be applicable to a variety of other fields as well. I feel like all workplaces have their workers kind of work out their place as they participate – nothing ever really seems stable. Schryer and Spoel even say that “individual and group identities are not static constructs but are improvised” (258). Furthermore, not only do present situations and practices influence identity formation, but also past experiences and orientations. This past socialization and practice are embedded in genres that affect present situations but never in predictable ways (258). As symbolic structures, genres overlap and contribute to changing fields, prompting shift and change and “the actions of agents using genres are never entirely predictable (259). It seems that in the workplace, with these unspoken rules and restraints and the variety of contextual factors, identity formation could always be changing and there should exist a shifting power balance. Something would always contribute to the context and situation at hand, but how can you ever really tell or predict what that is? I have blogged about this previously – there is just so much to every situation and context, it seems impossible for us to recognize or identify anything or everything that could be influential.

5.29 Reading Response

Texts:
Bawarshi & Rieff, Chapter 6: “Rhetorical Genre Studies”

One of the points that Bawarshi and Rieff make in this chapter is that rhetorical genre studies have claimed that genres are “dynamic rhetorical forms that develop from responses to recurrent situations and serve to stabilize experience and give it coherence and meaning” (79). So at the same time genres are dynamic but also help to stabilize. Although these seem to be complete opposites and may seem impossible, Bawarshi and Rieff comment that genres must accommodate both stability and change because variation is an inevitable part of recurrence and then cannot become obsolete (79). This makes me wonder what counts as change in this case because genres already seem so dynamic. Couldn’t change mean almost anything and wouldn’t that rule out the stability? How big does something have to be to change a genre? Can something small be influential? Can small changes prompt a change in genre or does it have to be big? Can it be just one even or does it have to be a variety of events or at least something consistent? Who decides or says that the genre has changed – who has the authority in this case? Or is the change just accepted by the community or does it even go barely recognized? Or can all of this happen and genre change is really just situational? Are there any rules for what changes genres or is it just a free for all? These questions just lead me to wonder how we identify a change in genre – what prompts it and what counts as a change and how is that recognized.

After discussing the different genre claims in RGS, Bawarshi and Rieff summarize by saying that genre is complex and dynamic, marked by both stability and change, serves as situated cognition, is connected to ideology, power and social actions and relations, and recursively enacts and reproduces community (82). What I find interesting is because genre can do all of these things; it seems very influential since it permeates so much and so many areas. Bawarshi and Rieff state that genres “do not function in isolation” but they also interact with a variety of things and other genres. So then I continue back to my questioning of genre change. If genres are interconnected to other genres and other elements/factors, how is it possible for them to change? Wouldn’t any change prompt a series of other changes? If it is so complex, does everything else have to change as well? Which has to change first? Or can they change in isolation with no other effects? Can one thing prompt change or is it something reciprocal? Because of all the elements involved, I think that the latter is more likely. However, then it seems like things would constantly be changing and that goes against the factor of stability that Bawarshi and Rieff discussed. It is a little confusing and although I know genres are “stabilized for now” how fine is that line between stable and changing?

Continuing on with my discussion of whether or not genre can be taught from yesterday’s post, Bawarshi and Rieff made a few additional points in this chapter. They say that because genre knowledge is a form of situated cognition, it can only be acquired over time (82). Furthermore, genres can’t be defined or taught just through their formal features because how we understand parts of the situation (object, outcomes, meditational means) and how we use them determines how we see them (103). Bawarshi and Rieff comment “genre knowledge is not fully activated or learned until the object/motives are acquired and become real for their users” (103). So unless the situation and its results are real, we won’t fully understand – formal knowledge is not enough (103). We need to be immersed in the genre and experience it for ourselves to really learn. I also thought their point on students feeling the authority being important in learning.

Just to touch on a few more points that I found interesting, I liked how Bawarshi and Rieff commented that subjectivity and identity were intertwined in genre knowledge and performance (104). I though this is very important because everybody brings something different to a situation – background knowledge, experience, perspective, etc. – so it seems that nothing can every really stay constant in terms of this subjectivity and identity. What we have individually definitely would influence what we know about genres and how we use them. I also like how meta-genres can help to smooth tensions between activity systems (101). This seems key since so many activity systems and genres overlap, there is bound to be a variety of contradictions. I also found the concept of uptake interesting to describe the complex ways genres relate to and take up other genres in activity systems (83).

5.28 Reading Response

Texts:
Bawarshi & Rieff, Chapter 1: Introduction &
Chapter 5: Genre in Rhetorical & Sociological Traditions

Bawarshi and Rieff start off the introduction to this book by discussing the debate on the definition of genre between those who view genres as containers of meaning versus those who see them as meaning-making. They state this confusion has to do with whether genres “merely sort and classify the experiences, events, and actions they represent” or whether they “reflect, help shape, and even generate what they represent in culturally defined ways” (3). This is not a new concept for us. All of the reading we have done in class thus for has already introduced us to this debate and also informed us that over the years genre scholarship has turned to take a point of view more similar to the latter. However, what I find still interesting about this is how people only ever saw genres as “containers for meaning” in the first place. Can anything really ever be just a container? Isn’t there always just sort of influence by just being there in presence? Take for example an actual container. Say that I have a liquid. If I put it in a bowl, I see it completely differently than if I put it in a cup or a jar. Soup that’s in a mug is drinkable but soup that’s in a bowl needs a spoon – either way it’s still soup but the container changes they way I not only see, but use, what it contains. I don’t see how genres could have only been perceived simply as labels or containers. By just existing and being associated with things they have influence. Maybe this is just my perspective as I have always been someone who things that things always interact and are socially constructed.

Another point I liked in the introduction is when Bawarshi and Rieff point out why studying genre is more important than just for scholarship. They say that it “helps us understand and prepare students for the increasingly specialized communicative needs of disciplines, profession, and everyday life” (5). I find this interesting and helpful because of our perspective that we took from our Workplace Communication class when we briefly studied genre. Genre isn’t just for theorizing and pondering – we can actually put it into action by using what we know in practice.

In chapter 5, Bawarshi and Rieff comment that a perspective of genre as rhetorically and socially dynamic, ideological, performative, intertextual, socio-cognitive, and responsive (basically all the things we have heard mentioned before in our readings) suggests that it can’t really be taught (60-1). They say that this kind of understanding implies that genres “cannot be explicated, explained, or acquired only through textual or linguistic means; they also cannot be abstracted from the contexts of their use for pedagogical purposes” (61). They even mention that some scholars have questioned the value of teaching genre explicitly (61). So then what are we doing in this class? Can genre really be taught? Can we even learn it? If genre is so complex and dynamic, how can you really teach it so someone can learn it? Instead of teaching, can we only describe genres and show them to others in an attempt to make them aware of genre and hoping they get the hang of it? Bawarshi and Rieff mention some solutions to this dilemma. It’s more about learning to recognize situations and relationships and to orient oneself properly. Some pedagogical approaches look more at genre awareness, ethnography, and situated apprenticeship (61). I found this really interesting because I feel that we are learning a lot less traditionally in this class. We are more being submerged into these readings and areas and kind of exploring for ourselves and toying with our own notions of genre. I think that’s kind of what was implied in this part of the reading.

5.25 Reading Response

Texts:
Gladwell, Small Change New Yorker (Oct 2010)

To start off with, I was immediately interested in this article because it is something familiar to me. I went to school in High Point, North Carolina – right in the Piedmont Triad of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. This particular event is a big part of the history of the area. I have been to a museum that remembers the event, there have been events commemorating it, even a play written about it (which I have done a press release on). Gladwell has even come to my school to speak. So it was really interesting to me that Gladwell connected his point regarding social media specifically to this – it really made it more relevant to me.

At the same time, while I did agree with some of Gladwell’s points, I did not agree with his overall attitude or position regarding social media and social change. Gladwell says that social media doesn’t really stand a change in helping with social change. He starts by describing the events of the civil rights movement and pointing out that they all happened without the use of e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter (2). But haven’t the ways we worked changed? I feel that social media and social networks give us a certain advantage. We have increased independence, the ability to influence a wider audience, and the change to work together in new ways with new tools to meet our objectives. Our network – or you could say system – is broader with more subjects. Let me explain.

Gladwell points out that today, “the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns” (2). Furthermore, “where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools” (2). But at the same time, he says that with our “outsized enthusiasm for social media” we have forgotten what activism is (3).  Wile high-risk activism deals with strong ties between people, Gladwell comments that social media platforms are built around weak ties (5). But where’s the proof for this? Isn’t this an awfully broad generalization? Personally, most of my accounts are friends – particularly my Twitter where I have a smaller amount of followers who are only people I know and talk to. If they are really only built around weak ties anyway, can’t this change? And why is this necessarily a bad thing? Gladwell says that there is strength in weak ties and that “our acquaintances – not our friends – are our greatest source of new ideas and information” (5). So couldn’t they insure us to do something effective in real life? He also points out that although the Internet lets us exploit these distant connections, it doesn’t often lead to high-risk activism (5). But does our society today even need high-risk activism. At least in the United States, I feel that we seem less willing to do anything high-risk for a cause anyway. The majority of people are comfortable in their lives and do not feel compelled to do anything that drastic. Times have changed and nothing enormous is motivating the majority of us to participate in anything high-risk.

Another point that Gladwell makes is that social media only brings things that provide easy commitments, the kind that don’t bring change but instead social acknowledgement and praise (5). I ask again, why is this a bad thing? He says that “social networks are effective at increasing participation – by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires” (5-6). But isn’t this more what our society needs, or at least calls for, today? Informing others, attending events, volunteering – these are all things that Gladwell mentions. Since when are these things not worthwhile? He says this kind of activism doesn’t motivate us to make real sacrifices (6). While this may be true, I think that it’s all we have. People have changed. Most of them aren’t going to be willing to make big sacrifices today anyways. At least we can get them involved more efficiently in this way – it’s better than nothing.

While I found it interesting, I don’t think Gladwell’s comparison of social media activism to the civil-rights movement is effective or appropriate. He is comparing it too much to the past. Times and society have both changed greatly – too much to compare. People think and act very differently. We have different ways of organizing ourselves and communicating, and we have different priorities and passions. As Gladwell says, the civil-rights movement was high-risk activism and was a “challenge to the establishment mounted with precision and discipline” (6). I don’t think anything has hit home hard enough for the majority of us to really see if social media could be put into action for high-risk activism. This isn’t comparable to anything happening close to home in our society today, so how can we judge how people are acting now compared to then? Gladwell says that the bad thing about networks is that they aren’t interested in systemic change (7). But what if something happened to get them interested – an event could prompt a change. Maybe if we were presented with something similar, we’d apply our situation to use social media in high-risk ways –we don’t know. Gladwell says that social media isn’t about the kind of hierarchical organizations used for the civil-rights movement, but for using tools for building networks (6). I think that this could, in fact, be more effective in the kind of society we are living in today – we all work together now as more of a network rather than a hierarchy thanks to these new tools. Galdwell says that decisions made this way – through consensus – are only loosely binding (7). But says who? Where’s the proof in that? If we make decisions together, we put more effort into them and have a personal connection to them. When we decide together, aren’t we more likely to be willing to stick together? Isn’t that part of the idea of Democracy?

Gladwell agrees that networks are resilient and adaptable in low-risk situations, but argues that the lack of centralized leadership and authority makes it hard to reach consensus and set goals (7). This kind of goes against what we have learned about an activity system. In a system, subjects all work together using tools to meet their objectives – so why wouldn’t this be possible in the activity system of a social network? Networks are messy (8) but so is real life today. The discipline and strategy used in the civil-rights movement may not even be possible today. So why shouldn’t we try to embrace the organizing power of the Internet at least? Instead of shooting it down for all of the things it can’t do, appreciate it for what it can do and be open for ways it might change. Nothing is static or stable in our society today, but constantly changing.

The Internet increases the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause (9). This organization and weak-ties connection gives us access to information more easily and promotes resilience and adaptability (9). They may not have the qualities of discipline and strategy or any of the other characteristics that have been successful for social change in the past, but who is to say that these can’t work today? I think this is more applicable to how our society works today. We have larger communities that are harder to organize and less likely to have strong ties between people. It is not social media that has prompted this change, it is just our growth and interactions as a society that has changed the way we act and communicate. Gladwell even says that the “instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient” (9). So if they can do this, why not more? Gladwell says that there isn’t a future in digital protesters – but how does he know? 50 years ago I’m sure few people had any inkling of the changes that were to come of their small actions in the civil-rights movement. Their actions didn’t seem to start off very big either, but they eventually grew. Change takes time and you never know what we are capable of with these new – and I think, powerful – tools.

5.24 Reading Response

Texts:
Winsor, Genre Activity Systems Engr
Panke & Gaiser, Head Clouds Social Tag  

Winsor brings up activity theory as a way to address the issue of the simultaneous existence of pattern and contingency, saying that it offers us the ability to see how text and context are mutually influential and that it allows is to see that lack of unity is normal in an activity system (200). What I found interesting about this article was not this point, but the part where she outlined some of the similarities and definitions between genre theory and activity theory. I had previously been a little hazy on this delineation, but I feel that Winsor helped make this a little clearer.

Genre theory sees genre as a “typified rhetorical response to a typified social situation” (201). Similarly, activity theory sees generic texts as tools that “hold activity systems together by giving them a regular form and a sense of permanence” (201). However, while similar in this manner, there are ways that activity theory breaks off from genre theory. While genre theory sees that shaping influences are one-directional, from only social context to the text, activity theory reconceptualizes the relationship between text and context and doesn’t see context as a container for in which text is produced (201). Instead, all of the elements in an activity system (subjects, tools, objects, etc.) are mutually constitutive and always changing. While genre theory focuses on repetition and continuity, activity theory sees that tensions and discontinuities are normal in a system (201). This is because “complex organizations almost always encompass several subsidiary activity systems with different interests” (201). Looking at it this way, Winsor argues, makes it easier to see that pattern and contingency clearly can coexist (201).

This helps illustrate to me that activity theory is much more malleable of an idea and able to encompass and explain more. Our systems and networks that we participate in can become so complex; we need something this flexible to look at them through in any hopes of understanding them.

In their article on social tagging, Panke and Gaiser describe it as a tool for organizing personal and shared knowledge (318). Their study found that people have highly individualized ways of tagging and also pursued it for very different goals (342). Panke and Gaiser identify several different kinds of taggers: ego taggers, everyday archivers, broadcasters, and team players (342). This kind of applies to how Winsor looks at systems as bring very complex and in flux – which is why it applies to activity theory. It also applies to genre theory, as stated directly by the authors – but I will get to this in a minute.

First, there are two sides to the debate on social tagging though. Critics argue that the quality of keywords is doubtful and user-generated keywords will only add to the already vast amount of data on the Internet (320). However, supporters point out that sorting patterns generated by users demonstrate that classification is a construction, emphasizing that ordering information is a form of social practice (320). So then, tagging may serve as a solution to exemplify the breadth of our knowledge and the variety of elements it contains (321).

So then, what I really found interesting in this article that connects it directly to class is how Panke and Gaiser connect social tagging to genre theory. According to them, “genre theory can provide a fruitful framework for understanding the emergence of free-indexing terms” in regards to social tagging (324). They see genres as “dynamic forms that mediate between the unique features of individual contexts and the features that recur across contexts” and thus are embedded in our communicative activities (324). They see using genres as ‘‘situated cognition’’ - embracing form and content, addressing rhetorical appropriateness; simultaneously constituting and reproducing social structures; and signaling norms, epistemology, ideology, and social ontology (324). How this relates to social tagging is that tagging activities could help us understand how we build tagging vocabularies and how tagging may serve as a “genre aggregator” that may “bind artifacts belonging to different types of genres or multiple genres together”(325). Furthermore, because differentiating between genres and technologies can be difficult, “tagging vocabulary can provide interesting material to investigate which traits and qualities of a given artifact constitute the genre”(346).  Another connection they make between social tagging and genre theory is the interplay of different genres. Looking at genres allows us to see how they interconnect to mediate specific activities (346). Panke and Gaiser argue that “tagging can be a way for us to visualize these interconnections, handle them in a self-organized manner, and thus create a productive information environment for ourselves and potentially for others” (346).

I think that it is interesting to look at social tagging in this way – as a way to illustrate genre theory. We had originally read this article last semester in Dr. Ding’s ENGL 856 class and had connected it to workplace communication. When reading it at that time, I saw social tagging as more of a strategic communication tool that was really beneficial for drawing in people and connecting them. This is probably thanks to my interest and background in PR. Reading it now in this class, I find it interesting to take a different perspective on it and see it in regards to genre theory as Panke and Gaiser illustrate briefly.