Key definitions in this text:

Genre: These are defined by their purpose, their rhetorical actions (what they do and how they are used) rather than by what they are. (p.141)

Activity system: Any ongoing, object-directed, historically conditioned, dialectically structured, tool-mediated human interaction. (p.141)

Electronic environment: The interface , point and medium, or environment of interaction between users and systems, it offers limtless generic opportunities. (p. 143)

This text explores how the discourses and literacy practices of popular culture intersect and interact with academic discourses and literacy practices in electronic environments (p. 140)

What is new? Electronic genres are social in that they increase the possiblities for participation and interactive collaboration. They allow rapid change of literacy practice and blur the distinction between home and school literacies. Features of effective electronic texts shape the academic literacy in electronic environments. Therefore the question should not be:Do electronic genres meet the criteria of academic literacy? The question is how academic literacy is shaped by the electronic environment acting as a point of interface between academic and popular literacies. The electronic interface acts as a point of conjuncture where users encounter similar composing strategies and skills in different activity systems.  Students often bring a lot of skills with them that are shaped by their engagement with popular literacies in an electronic environment. They need to build on these skills and develop crtical awareness of boundaries, genres and literacy practices.

My thoughts:

This text takes it for granted that modern students are highly skilled users of electronic environments. I wonder whether this is true of all students.

Carpenter, R (2009) Boundary negotiations: electronic environments as interface. Computers and Composition. 26, 138-148.