“The elements of this framework can be traced back in the theory of genre, as it has developed during the 20th century. The overview of this development below covers the dominant ideas and theories, that have given rise to the genre concept as summarized by Berkenkotter and Huckin. The first part is an outline of modern genre theory. It summarizes the historical background, necessary to understand the application of the genre concept to digital communication. The second part is a review of literature on digital genres (or cybergenres). This section is more detailed than the first part. The broader context is ‘genre as framework for electronic publishing’. This point of view is inspired by the idea, that genre creates shared expectations about the form and content of communication. In this way, genre characteristics are relevant to the design of electronic documents and websites, and genre analysis can be incorporated in the broad field of content engineering (or information engineering, as it is named elsewhere). Leading questions are, in which way such an approach might help to increase the effectiveness of electronic documents, and how the engineering process itself could benefit from a detailed analysis of generic elements.” (Leen Breure – University of Utrecht) – courtesy of peterme