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Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking
In recent years the economic policies of major financial institutions such as the European Union Central Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the International Monetary Fund have received growing media attention, reflecting increased public awareness of the impact of these institutions on the global economy and, more immediately, on the material conditions of our everyday lives. Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking takes readers into one such site, the Bank of Canada, that country's central bank and monetary-policy authority. Drawing on qualitative data gathered over two decades (1984-2004) and employing theories of activity, genre, narrative, and situated learning, the book provides an ethnographic account of the role of technology-mediated discourse in the Bank's knowledge-building, policy-making, and public communication. The first part of the book describes how the Bank's economists employ a set of written and oral discourse genres in combination with computer-run economic models to create specialized knowledge about the Canadian economy that is applied by the organization's senior decision-makers in directing national monetary policy. The book then examines the economists' use of another set of technology-mediated discourse genres to orchestrate the Bank's external communications with government, the media, the business sector, financial markets, labour, and academia. The book also explores the way in which the economists' discourse practices facilitate individual and organizational learning. In a foreword, Charles Bazerman describes the book's contribution to our understanding of organizational discourse and knowledge-making, situating this contribution in the study of economic rhetoric and the social formation of economy.
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Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking
In recent years the economic policies of major financial institutions such as the European Union Central Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the International Monetary Fund have received growing media attention, reflecting increased public awareness of the impact of these institutions on the global economy and, more immediately, on the material conditions of our everyday lives. Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking takes readers into one such site, the Bank of Canada, that country's central bank and monetary-policy authority. Drawing on qualitative data gathered over two decades (1984-2004) and employing theories of activity, genre, narrative, and situated learning, the book provides an ethnographic account of the role of technology-mediated discourse in the Bank's knowledge-building, policy-making, and public communication. The first part of the book describes how the Bank's economists employ a set of written and oral discourse genres in combination with computer-run economic models to create specialized knowledge about the Canadian economy that is applied by the organization's senior decision-makers in directing national monetary policy. The book then examines the economists' use of another set of technology-mediated discourse genres to orchestrate the Bank's external communications with government, the media, the business sector, financial markets, labour, and academia. The book also explores the way in which the economists' discourse practices facilitate individual and organizational learning. In a foreword, Charles Bazerman describes the book's contribution to our understanding of organizational discourse and knowledge-making, situating this contribution in the study of economic rhetoric and the social formation of economy.
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Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking

Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking

by Graham Smart
Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking

Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking

by Graham Smart

Overview

In recent years the economic policies of major financial institutions such as the European Union Central Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the International Monetary Fund have received growing media attention, reflecting increased public awareness of the impact of these institutions on the global economy and, more immediately, on the material conditions of our everyday lives. Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking takes readers into one such site, the Bank of Canada, that country's central bank and monetary-policy authority. Drawing on qualitative data gathered over two decades (1984-2004) and employing theories of activity, genre, narrative, and situated learning, the book provides an ethnographic account of the role of technology-mediated discourse in the Bank's knowledge-building, policy-making, and public communication. The first part of the book describes how the Bank's economists employ a set of written and oral discourse genres in combination with computer-run economic models to create specialized knowledge about the Canadian economy that is applied by the organization's senior decision-makers in directing national monetary policy. The book then examines the economists' use of another set of technology-mediated discourse genres to orchestrate the Bank's external communications with government, the media, the business sector, financial markets, labour, and academia. The book also explores the way in which the economists' discourse practices facilitate individual and organizational learning. In a foreword, Charles Bazerman describes the book's contribution to our understanding of organizational discourse and knowledge-making, situating this contribution in the study of economic rhetoric and the social formation of economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781845530679
Publisher: Equinox Publishing
Publication date: 10/01/2006
Series: Studies in Language and Communication
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Graham Smart is an Assistant Professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He has published studies of writing in workplace and academic settings as well as work on interpretative ethnography. His recent research also focuses on public-policy discourse and environmental rhetoric.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgements     xi
Foreword$dCharles Bazerman: Persuasive economies     1
Introduction     7
The study     7
An overview     7
The research site     8
The methodology: interpretive ethnography     9
The theoretical orientation     10
The organization of the book     16
The monetary-policy process: the big picture     21
Knowledge-building, ideology, and rhetoric in economics     21
'The economy' as a cultural construct     22
Knowledge-building, policy-making, and external communications     24
Methodological reflections: foundations of interpretive ethnography     31
Genres of knowledge-building and policy-making     36
Mathematical models in disciplinary knowledge-building     36
The Quarterly Projection Model     37
The Projection Exercise     40
Issues Meeting     48
Starting Point Meeting     49
Projection Rounds Meetings     51
Chiefs' Meeting     52
Presentation Meeting     52
Management Committee meeting     54
The White Book     55
End-of-quarter input to policy-making     56
Benchmark for current analysis     57
Reference point for sequence of meetings     58
Friday Presentation and Tuesday meeting     59
Governing Council meetings     61
Inter-projection monitoring exercise and meeting     61
Management Committee meeting     62
The monetary-policy story     65
Constructing the monetary-policy story     68
Variations on genre conventions     75
Methodological reflections: research questions, data collection, and data analysis     78
Probing key terms     82
Examining life-cycle narratives     82
Identifying converging perspectives     83
Applying disciplinary theory     83
The interplay of discourse genres and economic modelling     85
What is the Quarterly Projection Model?     86
Building, 'selling,' and enhancing QPM     94
What QPM does     111
QPM as a tool of reasoning     112
Representing the Bank's paradigm of the Canadian economy     112
Enabling research to develop the Bank's paradigm of the economy     115
Interpreting economic data     118
Performing policy analysis     120
QPM as a tool of intersubjectivity     121
QPM's influence on written and spoken discourse     126
The QPM vernacular     126
Logical rigour     127
Constraining the tendency to hedge     127
Providing a communal standard of logic     128
Tying reasoning to consensual macroeconomic theory     129
Encouraging precision     130
Making reasoning explicit and visible     131
The White Book     131
Methodological reflections: engagement and detachment     133
Genres of external communications     137
The Communications Strategy     140
Written genres - published     141
Oral genres - involving participants outside the Bank     142
Written and oral genres - behind the scenes     143
Two key features of the genre sub-set     147
Practitioners' genre knowledge     147
The relationship to organizational change     159
The role of genres in the Communications Strategy     163
Coordinating intellectual work     163
Producing and communicating public information     172
Acting as a site for organizational learning     175
Methodological reflections: issues of validity, reliability, and generalizability     182
Conclusion: addressing the 'So what?' question     187
A summary of the account     187
The Bank's monetary-policy process     187
A genre-mediated activity system     189
From knowledge-building to policy-making and external communications     191
A focus on discourse genres     192
Genre chains, genre set, and genre system     192
Functions of the genre set     193
Genre knowledge     194
Genres, analytical practices, and representations     194
Genres, change, and learning     196
The duality of genre     197
Implications for discourse theory     198
A socio-epistemic theory of organizational discourse     199
An activity-based genre theory     201
Functions of a genre set     202
Aspects of written genre knowledge     203
Genres, change, and learning     204
Implications for research in organizational discourse     205
Implications for teaching organizational writing     206
A few words of conclusion     207
Appendices
Data used in the study     209
Situating the Bank's economic ideology     210
A sample of equations from the Quarterly Projection Model     216
Sample questions from an interview with a department chief     217
The schedule of a Projection Exercise     218
The agenda for a Chiefs' Meeting     219
An unusual epigraph from an 'issue note'     220
The first page of an unconventional 'research memorandum'     221
Summary of the April 2005 Monetary Policy Report     223
A speech given by a Bank executive in September 2004 on the Bank's Communications Strategy     227
Endnotes     233
References     241
Index     255
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