Discourse Community Investigation Part One: Communication and Genre Analysis

Identify Genres Used by the Organization

Research Document: Discourse Community Investigation Part One Choose an organization within one of your discourse communities or within a discourse community you hope to join after graduation. Do more extensive research into this organization to learn how it communicates with its discourse community and with audiences external to its discourse community. Through your research, identify as many as possible of the genres that your organization uses to communicate with members of its discourse community (e.g. employees, clients & customers, suppliers, vendors, distributors, retailers, competitors, future clients and customers, regulatory agencies, and the general public). Some of these genres will be internal, some external, and some (like email) probably both. Examine in greater detail at least five different genres employed by your organization to communicate with internal and external audiences, (Genres could include such written documents as email, memos, business letters, social media feeds, websites, brochures, manuals, annual reports, mission statements, and advertising.) It’s probably wise to select a mix of internal and external genres. (If you are still struggling to get clarity on what constitutes a communication “genre,” call me and I will walk you through it. Identify each genre and see what they have in common with one another and how they differ (e.g. different audiences, different styles). Identify the writing conventions associated with each genre. This might be word choice, style, documentation, page design and layout, or organizational plan. Identify the expectations that the audience for each genre will probably bring to their experience of reading it. Here are some questions you should ask yourself: Why does your discourse community use this genre for the purposes of spreading information to members? In other words , what is it about this genre in particular that makes it a good fit for this organization? What expectations will these various audiences probably have when reading a message in this genre from this organization? How does your organization place its brand and organizational personality on this genre when communicating with its discourse community? How does it make its messages speak with its own voice so they don’t sound bland and generic. Select an example or two from each genre to analyze more deeply. What is the purpose of each piece? Who is the target audience? What kind of information does it present—or omit? What attributes tell you that it belongs to your discourse community – language, style, content, design…? Analyze each of the samples you have chosen as an example of organizational rhetoric. (Use the strategy that you used for Assignment 1 and try to pick different types with different purposes so you don’t have to repeat yourself too much.) Consider all of Swales’ eight characteristics in your analysis. (They may apply differently to different samples and you don’t have to use all of them every time—only the ones that apply. As part of your analysis, identify the attributes (see above) that place the sample in the discourse community you have chosen. Use textual evidence (i.e. quotes or screenshots) from the sample piece to support your analysis. Select an information source that was written about your selected organization by someone external to its discourse community. This might be a news story about the organization, or a competing ad or attack advertising created by a competitor, or a nomination for a prize created by a client. Identify the genre of this outside piece. What is its purpose? What information does it present—and omit? What is its point of view? Is it neutral or biased? Who is the target audience? Perform a rhetorical analysis of the piece to see what it tells you about how the organization is viewed rather than how it views itself. Does an outside view reinforce what the organization communicates about itself or contradict it? What does the added information from an outside viewpoint tell you? Part Two Choose A Scenario Scenario 1: You are an employee in the Media and Communications Division at the organization you have selected. Your boss has asked you to do some research for her and write your findings up as an internal report. Her bosses in Strategic Management are interested in finding out which communication genres within the organizations are working effectively and which genres, if any, are underutilized or misdirected. They would like to know if audiences are being targeted correctly and what is being done well. They would like to know if their written communication accurately reflects the messages they are trying to send and reflects correctly on the organization. They are interested in learning if others see them the same way they see themselves. They are also interested in knowing about areas for potential improvement. Your report should attempt to answer these questions for her so she can answer the same questions for them.