Conceptualizing and Implementing Digital Genres: A Narrative Review toward Educational Innovation in Morocco

With the development of communication, new ways of creating and sharing meaning have emerged. Digitally mediated genres represent some of these new forms that arose from analog genres. For this reason, understanding digital genres is crucial to enhancing pedagogical practices. Thus, we opted for a narrative review to explore how the digital genre has been defined and applied as a theoretical and evolving concept. This review draws on genre theory, digital rhetoric, digital genre analysis, and educational studies to examine the main theoretical and methodological issues surrounding digital genres, with a particular focus on their role in education. Accordingly, we first defined the concept ‘genre’ as the backbone of understanding digital genres and scrutinized the three major approaches within genre theory: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and New Rhetoric (NR). We then conceptualized digital genre and highlighted the effects that digital media affordances have in shaping it. Subsequently, we addressed digital genre analysis and contrasted it with pre-digital analysis to uncover the complexity of this relatively new process. Lastly, we reviewed works that propose ways to implement digital genres in the classroom. The analysis revealed that, despite increasing recognition in education, the conceptual foundations of digital genres remain fragmented. It also showed that their integration into Moroccan classrooms remains limited, as most studies conducted in Morocco emphasize the importance of ICT, including audiovisual methods, without specifying how students can navigate and produce digital genres. Overall, this study paves the way for future research that encourages the integration of digital genres into Moroccan education and celebrates students’ agency and creativity.