Hello Muhammad and Eliezer, Thankyou for taking the time to further define metadiscursive. I employed the term as a lazy catchall for the sake of brevity, but ended up causing concern for my research. You're right, I shouldn't employed a term that is wrought with plurality. I appreciate the guidance you have given because I have only looked at this question from the point of view of the paratextual and intertextual at this stage. I'm also aware of the difficulty of defining what is a discussion about something and what is a work. Indeed, this is what I argue -- that they are all layers of the 'work'. But I don't think there is data that is that specific (tell me if there is!). I have assumed that there is not data that already clusters activity on the Net according to its status in a 'work', and instead am trying to find any data that provides a snapshot of different types of activity. Since a lot of research has gone into blogs, forums and listservs (in particular fan communities) I thought there would be some data on this that I can compare with data on how many works are available on the Net: how many films webcast for instance, how many hypertext works etc? Even data for a specific country or even data around a particular work would help. At present I'm comparing data on a per-work basis: comparing sites that are part of the fictional world, forums, listservs, news articles and so on. I label them all as part of the work and describe their various functions in the work. In the end, I think I'll have to just go with this per-work analysis. But it would be nice to find out if there is any data that provides some form of taxonomy of data on the Net. Is this clearer? Thankyou for your assistance in advance, Christy Message: 6 Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:58:52 -0300 (ART) From: Eliezer Ferreira <tradutoref@yahoo.com.br> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Taxonomy of Content on the Internet To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Message-ID: <20060917155852.16082.qmail@web51706.mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Dear Christy, As professor Muhammad has said I don't have a definite answer to our investigation. But I guess any study of this nature must be considered by an etnographic point of you since we are to take into account the diversity of material posted on the Net and the culturally situated individual who has written that. As the very concept of discursive and metadiscursive may vary feom Scholars to Scholars, so the approach peolple may have of the other discourse. Maybe it hasn't been the focus of your research, but at least it is some food for the thought. My research project is related on how students read on the internet and hoiw the digital divide affects this reading. So, in a way, I am to analyse data from an etnographic pespective also. Hope I have shed some light... Good luck in your journey, Eliezer Ferreira Professor of English Faculty of Arts and Letters /UFPE Brazil Muhammad Abdul-Mageed <mumageed@yahoo.com> escreveu: Dear Christy, and all, Although I do not have an answer for the question you raised, I guess an important point is the one related to the criterion upon which we label anything as being metadiscursive. As far as I can see, two main perspectives can emerge. First, it can be said that anything that is not related to the propositional content--which Christy seems to call the 'actual thing,' is metadiscursive. Second, anything related to 'writer-reader' interaction can be taken as being an example of metadiscourse. Again, as far as I know, this will depend upon the perspective from which we strike the distiction between discourse and metadiscourse. But I am not sure whether you Christy is concerned with these theoritical issues about the nature of metadiscourse or not. Anyhow, 'metadiscourse' has been defined differently by different people. Scholars like Williams, Deborah Schiffrin, Vande Koople, Avon Crismore, and Ken Hyland have been actively involved in theorizing about the concept. And it is the more recent writings of Hyland that seems to challenge the traditional definitions of the concept and offer a different classification, not based upon the dichotomy of discourse and metadiscourse as two opposing, but intricately related, concepts. I think that we need to be clear about the criterion before deciding. Best Muhammad Abdul-Mageed, Dept of English, Faculty of Arts, Kafr El-Sheik Univerity, Egypt Christy Dena wrote: Hello All, I'm trying to find out if there is any data to support the contention that the majority of content on the Internet is meta-discursive: discussions about things rather than the actual thing. This is I believe a logical assumption to make considering the amount of content in blogs, wikis, forums, listservs, news, general websites and so on; and the affordances of the web and the primary function of the web for many. But perhaps there is more content (mainly remediated perhaps) that I may be aware of. I'm aware that more and more content is being made available on the Net but I don't think it outweighs discussions about it yet. I can look at the stats on the amount of blogs and so on and the stats on why people use the web but I'm wondering if there are any studies that compare the various types of content available on the Net? And, I'd also be interested on the views of those on this list. Do you think there is more meta content than anything else? Do you think there more discussions about content than anything else? I'm aware that a snapshot of the entire Net is not an option, nor is there the possibility of a conclusive taxonomy of the Net, but just interested in pursuing the idea. As a background, I'm looking at this question from the view of an analysis of how entertainment has changed with the Internet. If I simply missed studies that are already on the AOIR website or have been discussed on this list, could someone just send me a link, and accept my apologies! Cheers, Christy Dena School of Letters, Art and Media University of Sydney, Australia Web: http://www.Cross-MediaEntertainment.com Web: http://www.ChristyDena.com Web: http://www.WriterResponseTheory.org Web: http://www.SlateNight.com _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail. _______________________________________________