From isolation to constellation: Narrative focalisation in current technology disclosures

Abstract

In this article, I explore focalisation in the mediated account of universitytechnology disclosures, a relatively recent digital genre for science andtechnology commercialisation and institutional promotion through onlinedissemination and outreach. Born in academic settings, this genre is still in-themakingand highly susceptible to discursive hybridity. My study draws on aneclectic framework that combines the principles of Netnography with NarrativeInquiry, (Critical) Genre and Multimodal Analysis, and Positioning Theory toexamine the teller’s role and the telling practices contained in two types ofinterrelated documents published by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid onits webpage: the institution’s current Technologies Portfolio and a series of salient inhouseinnovative technologies/projects rendered in comic-book format, both intheir English version. The scrutiny of the 134 samples of the Portfolio and of the 12 instances ofcomic-books reveals how the hybridity generated by digital affordancesinfluences narrative and, along with it, promotional strategies. I lay specialemphasis on the concept of ‘narrative focalisation’ and attempt to answer thefamous Goffmanian question “Who is speaking?”, making the point that genrenetworking is a way of telling and ultimately of institutional branding.