Misinformation As Genre Function: Insights on the Infodemic from a Genre-Theoretical Perspective

ABSTRACT

Misinformation has generated much discussion in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant “Infodemic,” as the World Health Organization (WHO) dubbed the challenge of disordered information. Rhetorical genre studies can offer important insights about how misinformation functions within informational ecologies by revealing how typification and recurrence provide opportunities for misinformation to take hold. This article develops a genre-based framework to study scientific and technical misinformation as illicit genres through concepts of genre function and abusability.

KEYWORDS:

• Genre theory
• illicit genres
• genre function
• genre abusability
• misinformation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The social action (Miller, 1984) these genres perform is to “intimidate the receiver of the threat” (Bojsen-Møller et al., 2020, p. 7). Illicit genres are difficult to characterize as they do not commonly “originate from an official institution” nor do they “emerge from a coherent discourse community,” and they do not have a “specific community of practice” either (Bojsen-Møller et al., 2020, p. 8) but could be characterized within the broader framework of vernacular genres (Miller, 2018). Doing so is useful because the social actions of the genres are very real and such work demands that the conceptual frames of genre studies continue to be expanded to chart evolving forms.

2. We interpret this through the English language summary provided in Bojsen-Møller et al. (2020).

3. Bojsen-Møller et al. (2020) tested this genre function in threats by asking people (111 Danish participants) to assess four statements to determine whether these statements were understood to be threats, independent of the context in which they occur (as to not only test the situation) and the results show overwhelmingly people identified the statements, ranging from indirect to direct threats, as such (2020, p. 31). The authors reason that participants invoked tacit genre knowledge to make these assessments because the typical contextual features had been removed.

4. We might also distinguish forms of “untrue” or “false” content such as satire and parody or forms of advertising because those genres, forms, etc., or simple errors or mistakes, normally do not have a primary function to sow confusion (and even advertising is primarily concerned with other functions such as moving someone to purchase a product or experience).

5. Here we will not rehearse what research from allied fields including linguistics tells us about threats as speech acts. Bojsen-Møller et al. (2020) does it better, more thorough and engaging than any summary we could offer here, and their work demands attention for its originality and importance. We will say that intention may be essential to the act but matters are somewhat more complicated.

6. Notably, a key idea of exigence becomes a point of contention in theorizing the rhetorical situation and genre (Freadman, 2020; Miller, 2020). Part of the contention is that genres change over time and exigence raises questions about its place with respect to the rhetorical situation (in Bitzer’s, 1964 as well as Miller’s terms) and genre. Anne Freadman (2020) poses alternative concepts of “jurisdiction” and “ceremony,” which are interesting and rich concepts to consider the interplay of genres (p. 124). To resolve the questions Freadman raises, Miller (2020) defines “exigence” with respect to genre in a helpful manner, writing that “exigence is consolidated by its recurrence (i.e., it is typified) and that it is changed in its very occurrence, since recurrence is never (can never be) precise replication” (p. 136). For misinformation, this discussion of exigence is an important point of consideration because the nature of the entire rhetorical situation is distorted.

7. Carolyn R. Miller (2017) explains the process of genre emergence is the “stabilization of shared recognitions and social agreements” (p. 5).

8. The tool is “part of a rapid response project from the Social Media Lab at Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University [now Toronto Metropolitan University], and is funded in part by CIHR and the World Health Organization,” as described in the user manual hosted by CanCOVID: https://cancovid.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/UserGuide-Misinformation-Dashboard-2021Apr29.pdf; more at: covid19misinfo.org/misinfowatch/” title=‘Ctrl+Click to follow link’ element-type=‘link’ ref-type=‘DOI’ aid=‘is47563a28yxv01’ icoretag=‘uri’ ia_version=“0”>https://covid19misinfo.org/misinfowatch/

9. At the time of this writing, Twitter had yet to be renamed as X. Throughout this article, we will continue to refer to it as Twitter. Twitter is an increasingly challenging space for identification of misinformation because credibility markers (e.g., “blue checks” or a system that once indicated a user was verified to say they are indeed who they claim to be) was opened to a broader user base through a purchase plan, which was quickly abused and discontinued. The quickly evolving changes to Twitter will likely raise further questions and change the nature of how misinformation may circulate, be identified, or addressed.

10. Indeed, Collins and Evans (2007) make this important point in their periodical table of expertise and note that social understanding of a field is an important feature such that one can effectively assess claims.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher

Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher is an Associate Professor and a Canada Research Chair at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She is the author of On Expertise (Penn State UP), Science Communication Online (OSUP) and coeditor of Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (Palgrave).

Brad Mehlenbacher

Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher is Professor of Rhetoric and Communication in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is the author of the award-winning book, Instruction and Technology: Designs for Everyday Learning (MIT Press, 2010).