The Evolution of Cybergenres

The combination of the computer and the Internet has resulted in the emergence of cybergenre, a new class of genre. Cybergenre can be characterized by the triple, , where functionality refers to the capabilities afforded by this new medium. When an existing genre initially migrates to this new medium, it is usually as a faithful reproduction of the existing genre in both content and form with little new functionality. It may then evolve into a variant cybergenre as it incorporates functionality afforded by the computer and Internet. Cybergenres also include novel genres, either not based on previously existing genres or substantially different from existing genres on the basis of increased functionality. These novel genres may have either persistent or virtual instantiations. This paper proposes a taxonomy of these cybergenres and examines the evolution of the news cybergenre and the mathematics dictionary cybergenre within the context of this taxonomy.