Webgenres and - styles as socio-cultural indicators - an experimental interdisciplinary dialogue

The paper presents a crossdisciplinary experiment of analysing web design through a combination of the academic fields of design history and anthroplogy. The two authors merge aesthetic and socio-cultural aspects of new technology in a case-based discussion of the invention and use of contemporary web design. Indicating the potentials of an inter-disciplinary perspective in exploring design in general they draw on such parameters as user-differenctiation and aesthetic positioning in a discussion of the role of genre and style in commercial formations on the web. Comparing examples from banking web-pages, they discuss certain aspects of cultural and esthetical conceptual representational systems that are expressed through genres and styles on the net. They argue that web design has become a central cultural field for the negotiation and expression of identity and taste, communicating different design norms and forms of social distinction.