Genre Competition

The Disruptive Work of Activist

Videos at Davis

Justin M. Jory

Salt Lake Community College

Theoretical Framework

• Freadman (2002) argues that “genre” is about interacting sets of texts

and illuminates the political transformations (of identities and actions)

that occur through interactions.

• Pare (2002) suggests that social identities can act as a locus for

examining political dimensions of genres.

• Lemke (2009) points to the semiotic resources genres deploy

(modalities, media, discourses) and offers the practice of traversing

resources to explore how they coordinate and rupture social identities.

On Students’ Activist Videos at Davis

By remediating social identities, student videos

competed with “official” messages composed and

distributed by Davis Administrators; in doing so, they

enacted a compelling example of socio-political

disruption.

Message 1

Message 2

“I am writing to you today as one who deeply

appreciates and defends robust and respectful dialogue

as a fundamental tenet of our great academic

institution . . . I sympathize with the profound

frustrations so many of you have expressed during the

past few days. These are truly difficult times. We join

you in your desire to advocate for increased state

support . . . We appreciate the substantive dialogue you

have begun here, and we want to offer you appropriate

opportunities to express your opinions.”

“The group was informed in writing this morning

that the encampment violated regulations . . . a

number of protestors refused our warning, offering

us no options but to ask the police to assist in their

removal. We have a responsibility to our entire

campus community . . . to ensure that all can live,

learn, and work in a safe and secure environment. We

were aware that some of those involved in the recent

demonstrations on campus were not members of the

UC Davis community and this required us to be even

more vigilant about the safety of our students.”

Concluding Thoughts

Argument: Disruptive potential of videos lies in semiotic

resources they employ to construct identities and in the

ways these resources interact with those employed by

official messages

Broader questions about genre competition: How can we

use competition to understand a kind of political

economy of genre?