Towards a Generic Analysis of the Microblog (Based on a Study of Twitter)

Summary

Abstract

This article is an attempt to determine the place of microblogs, posted on Twitter, on the Internet or, more broadly in the multimedia genealogy.

First, the service itself is presented and mechanisms of its functioning are described. Then its importance for society is mentioned. Furthermore, some crucial issues related to the theory of genres are presented and they constitute an essential introduction to the re-search methodology. The “guides” on the path of reflection and on the characteristics of microblogs are the “older siblings” of this form of expression: the Internet, journalistic and other genres, whose determinants have already been described. Such an order is matched against another one – the tradition of genres’ description in four aspects: structural, prag-matic, cognitive and stylistic.

Key words: microblog, new genres, multimedia genealogy, theory of genres, Twitter

Introduction

The goal of this article is to establish a preliminary definition of the place of microblogs, published on the Twitter website, in the Internet – or more broadly, multimedia – genealogy. It will be accompanied by reflection on genealogy itself, since–making this goal an especially interesting research challenge–the current state of research on the genres of all linguistic texts does not give any ready answers to the questions concerning them that are asked by linguists and literary critics, as well as by media studies schol-ars and scholars of culture in general. The analysis presented below is not a synthesis of long-term studies on the issues connected with Internet communication and its genealogy, but an “exploratory” record of contact with them. Thus it is also not motivated by the idea of presenting a defini-tive solution, but of showing the points that give rise to further questions. Such an approach allows one to look at a relatively new1 phenomenon with the curiosity of an “explorer”.

First of all the service itself and the way it works will be presented, and next its meaning in society. After as brief a presentation as possible of Twitter, I will go on to the core issues tied to the theory of genres, which are an essential introduction to the study's methodology. As “guides” on the path of reflection about the genealogical description of microblogs I have chosen the “older siblings” of this form of expression: Internet genres, press genres and other speech genres whose characteristics have already been described.