Digital media: the miracle of the multiplication of genres

Abstract

The aim of this article is to rethink journalistic genres in a digital context. A thorough observation of the contemporary media ecosystem enables us to look at discourse genres as a result of processes of hybridization and recycling. Our starting point is the theoretical discussion provided by Martinez Albertos’ studies (in the 2nd half of the 20th century) and the textual production of the first reference Portuguese medium that is entirely (and exclusively) online – Observador. We try to understand how changes in journalistic production and dissemination routines, accelerated by the digital shift, are responsible for changes as far as journalistic genres are concerned. Considering that these genres were rarely considered as hermetic categories or pure models, contemporary journalism practices provide the perfect setting for hybridization, rendering all typologies obsolete. We focus on two of these phenomena, that we consider particularly relevant as far as state-of-the-art journalism is concerned: newsletters and explainers.