The discourse community that I will be analyzing is an online magazine
that I am a part of: Her Campus. There is a national branch of the magazine as
well as individual branches for different colleges so I will be looking at OU’s
branch.
HC qualifies as a discourse community by exhibiting all six of
Swale’s characteristics. The goal of the magazine is to gain readers and
advertisers. Another less obvious goal is to allow college students and
opportunity to gain writing experience so they can build their resume and
network with other journalism majors from around the country.We communicate
through emails, weekly meetings, social media and, if the message is urgent,
through texting and phone calls. We communicate with the national branch
through weekly email newsletters and through surveys. We provide feedback
through editing articles and voicing our opinions at meetings. During each
meeting, we decide who will write what stories for the upcoming weeks. We then
brainstorm different topics and decide what we like and dislike as a group. We
review the stories to make sure that each person in the organization has at
least one story and the necessary sections of the magazine are complete for the
following week. We also provide feedback on what we did to raise awareness of
the magazine and if we did any PR and/or social media interaction. We also
discuss what other branches are doing and what things we like/dislike about
other branches’ stories during the past week. An example of a genre is the way
in which specific articles are written. A blog post, which is an opinion piece,
is not written the same way a serious feature story is written. Specific lexis
of the magazine are various journalism and PR terms such as press release,
feature, blog, ad revenue, solicitation, etc. Also, social media terms
regarding Twitter and Facebook could be considered lexis. The threshold level ranges
from editors-in-chief to new member. You can move throughout the ranks based on
your participation in the organization. Also, we hold yearly elections for the
positions of editors-in-chief, section editors, business manager and PR
manager. You run for these positions by turning in a resume and brief
explanation on why you would be the best for a certain position. You are then
elected to each position by the editors-in-chief.
I would interview one of our two branch editors, or
editors-in-chief, as well as another general member of the magazine. This would
allow me to look at the community from two different perspectives and roles.
I can analyze various texts from the community. These include
the constitution, or set or rules and explanation of how things occur in the
group, emails, memos and meeting minutes.
Hi Heather,
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good plan. You've already got this great understanding of the publication and the community of individuals who work on it. I did wonder about your description of the magazine's goals. You mention that members share goals of "gaining readers and advertisers" and providing opportunities of experience for college students, but what about the magazine's content? Aren't there explicit goals regarding what kind of information the magazine distributes?
The rest of your application of Swales is pretty good, though you'll want to give more details in the paper. You've got an excellent starting ground for a really interesting study though. I like how you've pinpointed specific people to interview as well as different texts. I think what you need a this point are 2-3 research questions which can guide your data collection (how you draft interview questions, who you interview, what texts you look at and how you look at them)
One really interesting question might be- How effective are these kinds of apprenticeship programs at preparing students for the journalism career? You could ask the same question of different members (with different levels of membership), as you proposed, and see what kind of different answers you get.
Of course, you don't have to go this route at all. You might also look at how newer members become "enculturated" (that is, gain authority in the group) and how that enculturation shows up in their writing. What type of conventions to more established members expect of newer members?
Whatever you choose to do, make sure you have specific focus, tie it to one of the concepts we're reading about, and always bring it back to language/communication/writing. Good work. This is going to be good.