Why is it important to critically analyse the culturally and historically specific ways in which meaning is discursively produced?

Everyone has an understanding of themselves and their world due to the historical, cultural and social formation. These three fields are what bring together the concepts of genre, intertextuality and discourse. Genre is "recognised paradigmatic sets into... a given medium (film, television and books) [which] is classified" (O'Sullivan et al 1994:127). Genre can be blurred due to "meaning [that] cannot be confined to single words, sentences or particular texts but is the outcome of relationships between …

…Internet site/article: Bronski, Mark, 1999, Gods and Monster: The Search for the Right Whale, http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/resources/reserve/index.php?command=searchCourse&course=CUL100 , (12 September, 2003). Cranny-Francis, Anne, 2003, Genre and Intertextuality, http://www.ccs.mq.edu.au/ug/100/notes.html, (2 September, 2003). Young, Elizabeth, 2001, Bods and Monsters: The Return of the Bride of Frankenstein, http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/resources/reserve/index.php?command=searchCourse&course=CUL100 (22 August, 2003).