Journal of Business and Technical Communication Oct 2017

Moments and Metagenres: Coordinating Complex, Multigenre Narratives

Brian McNely

Abstract

Professional and technical communication increasingly involves developing narratives that traverse multiple genres, media formats, and publishing venues. In marketing and advertising, brand stories unfold across Web sites, ad campaigns, and social media properties. A fundamental challenge in such work is multigenre coordination, leading to a key question: How do professionals manage complex ecologies of genres, media content, and interactions in ways that build and sustain narrative coherence and audience engagement? Reporting findings from a study of transmedia writers, this article argues that metageneric texts may emerge as important coordinative resources for planning, developing, and tracking uptakes within multigenre narratives. It thus contributes to professional and technical communication by describing a widening gap in scholarly approaches to metagenre; arguing for empirical examinations of metageneric constructs in tangible, flexible texts that serve situated needs in given activity systems; and demonstrating how such texts may emerge and play a formidable role in coordinating contemporary, multigenre narratives.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2017-10-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651917713252
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Topics
genre theory technical communication social media
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (10)

  1. Adavi et al. (2025)
    “Proud to Be the Enabler”: Closed System Ideology in the Origin Stories of Indi…
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  1. Sabaj et al. (2023)
    “The Basis of Aaaalll of Our Program!” The Start-Up Chile Playbook as Metagenre
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  2. Wickman (2023)
    Genre and Metagenre in Biomedical Research Writing
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  3. Dush (2022)
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  4. Weedon et al. (2021)
    Embodied Genres, Typified Performances, and the Engineering Design Process
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  5. Danner (2020)
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