The role that genre plays in communication may be difficult to ascertain at first. When one thinks of genre, they immediately jump to the thought of it as a “relatively trivial concept, a classification of system deriving from literary criticism that names types of texts according to their forms.” This, however, has more to do with reading than writing, and even less so than oration (something communication is primarily thought of as). However, as the article states, “recent conceptions of genre as a dynamic and semiotic construct illustrate how to unify form and content, place text within context, balance process and product, and acknowledge the role of both the individual and the social. This reconception of genre may even lead us to a unified theory of writing.” By knowing how to compose your work, whether it’s oral or written, one can find it easier to assign a specific genre to it. Not only that, but composing it the way you would want it to be received is also a necessary factor.
Genre entails purposes, participants, and themes, so understanding genre entails understanding a rhetorical and semiotic situation and social content. Then genres develop because they respond appropriately to situations that writers encounter repeatedly, and thus with that experience they can better understand the situation and compose their piece to best reflect it. The new conception of genre is that it depends heavily on the intertextuality of discourse, and knowing the genre means knowing what is appropriate subject matter. Appropriate doesn’t necessarily mean “is it kid friendly”, but rather “is it relevant to the subject at hand”. Simultaneously, genre must respond dynamically to human behavior and social changes. Because both are forever evolving, genre too must be constantly reworked to fit with them. The expectations that genres set is that each has a formula and when one knows the formula, composing in that particular genre is likely to be fairly easily. However, since genre and situation are mutually constructive, what we diagnose as inability to write a particular genre may in fact be an unfamiliarity with the genre’s situation. That is to say, you may not necessarily be able to write a mystery novel just because you’ve read one. A limitation genre presents would be that the knowledge of how to define your audience and purposes would change under a new notion of genre. This is because it would be clear that selecting a genre would automatically narrow the possibilities for audience and purpose. Once again, we return to the mystery novel: your audience would be limited to fans of mystery novels. People who love to read historical texts wouldn’t glance twice at your work. Conversely, wanting to address a particular audience and purpose constrains one’s choice of genre. If you wanted to appeal to people who liked sparkly vampires, you’d be forced to write an absurd and horribly clichéd teen vampire romance novel, and your name would be Stephanie Meyer.
Without genre, the way of communication would lack many skills for readers and writers. Genre puts a type of media into a category to appeal to different audiences. It makes a clearer understanding for what a piece of work can be defined as. In terms of composing a genre, it says “Genres develop, then, because they respond appropriately to situations that writers encounter repeatedly. In principle, that is, writers first respond in fitting ways and hence similarly to recurring situations” (Devitt 576). Genres are made from the people and what is going on in the world. Genres are more flexible today than we were years ago because we compose them based on social influences going on in the world at the moment. It is helpful by giving the writing and reader more interest in a certain subject and more options. Genre gives a lot of expectations by making it the best way to talk about something. It gives us a process to form how we want to get our point out to everyone. For example, when I was younger the newspaper was always delivered to my house every morning for my parents to read. As I got older, the papers stopped coming because of the Internet. Now the newspaper is free online getting information than having to pay someone to kill trees. Getting your idea out to the world is easier with technology growing at high speeds. Although genres are very good in the aspects of communication, we also have to deal with the limitations. Some genres have a rigid structure which have a certain form and structure you have to follow to fit into it. For example, I couldn’t just write a romantic novel without knowing the sequences of how the structure is. I agree with some limitations because some genres should have a structure to go by. Rules need to be made sometimes, even in our projects that are going to be due next week. A structure guideline needs to be set. Genres develop great communication to an audience that is willing to be pleased and can become successful in that certain subtype.
When I think of genre I tend to think about music. Usually when you hear music you hear different individuals ask about the genre. Is it rap, hip hop, rock , metal or any of the other genres? In communication one should be able to distinguish what genre they are going to use and how it will affect their work. For instance, a speech, a speaker must know how to write the speech, what audience to target and so forth. We as a society also communicate through different text and media. Genre is very important to decide before communicating or even while communicating. Genre can also be brought about depending on the different rhetorical situations. Personally, I feel that genre plays a very important role in composing. Although I had a hard time understand what genre was throughout the article, I could tell it had something to do with categories. The reason I say this is because in the article it talked about genre being a “filing system.” With that being said, when composing one must take into consideration who the audience is and decide on a genre. Who is the audience? What am I going to talk about? Through what media am I going to display this message? These are some of the questions that should arise when talking about genres and trying to compose a piece. Depending on the audience you choose to compose your work on you will have a certain technique or style. These are all elements of genre, that’s must be taken into consideration. I don’t really feel that genre sets the expectations. I think that the audience set the expectations for the genre. For example, music of course, listeners believe that hip hop should be upbeat, not too slow, and very catchy. The listeners set the expectations for the artist who will then compose the peace to fit into the genre. Furthermore, as situations changes genre changes, therefore, the expectations are set based on the different situations and not necessarily the genre.
The role genre plays in both communication and composition is perhaps more subtle than obvious, but certainly, is one of value. When information or ideas are expressed, either orally or through the written word, most often a relative genre inherently exists and can be ascribed, given the subject matter at hand. (Am I reading a novel? A poem? A satirical essay? A textbook? Am I hearing a news address? A eulogy? A political speech?...) Establishing genre can in most instances be an open and shut case. However, understanding the function of genre requires a bit more consideration.
Having said that, I believe the most vital purpose of genre, as related to both communication and composition, is to indicate—broadly speaking—what the form and tone of a particular piece will be. In establishing genre, the individual who is expressing or composing something then has a reference point by which they can effectively assess and revise both the style they elect to convey, and the structure they wish to utilize. As well, the audience of any particular work, whether it is written or spoken, may benefit from genre in that once it is established, so too is the level of interest and engagement they will have in what is being expressed. Of course, genre is both inviting and limiting, to both one who composes, and an audience. For example, while personal travel journals may be published in abundance and garner wide audiences, while blogs about international travel destinations may exist in great numbers and inspire an interchange of ideas and advice, analytical reports about tourism in Macedonia may be far and few between, and are likely to garner minimal readership. Additionally, genre inscribes limitation in that the level of understanding and appreciation that an individual work may incite is often directly related to the cultural and educational backgrounds of the respective audience members.
Similar to the others terms that we have already gone over; genre is a little more complex than originally thought. Genre is closely related to audience since the writer needs to know who their audience is in order to decide on which type of genre fits best. You are not going o write a child’s book and try to market it to college kids since it is not the right audience. This was even seen in the PETA videos the other day which the organization used multiple forms to fit different genres to try and appeal to a wider audience. The Super Bowl ad tried to appeal to mean by being satirical and making it look like a cheesy old porn movie. At the same time, they used a completely different genre to try and appeal to Christians and misuse quotes from the Bible to relay the same message about how eating meat is bad.
In a similar sense, the Barbie images from earlier today did the same thing by using multiple takes on the same basic concept. To sum it up in a nutshell, all the examples said that Barbie was bad for children because she portrayed an unrealistic woman and gave off a negative image. However, they used different mediums to get that message across. One was a video with pictures and a song to relay the message (more for a digitally based audience) while another was just a personal essay with no images (geared towards an older group of people who grew up with less electronics). However, there were still some images which were not geared toward a specific group of people. These images used shock value to embed the idea of Barbie being bad by taking an image and making it eye popping and attention grabbing. The anorexic Barbie was eye opening because it was a play on how Barbie is typically portrayed as a super model, yet she was now being seen as someone with an eating disorder.
This use of the Barbie images and text were forms of new genre since they were much more flexible than would have been accepted even twenty or thirty years ago. Genre as a whole has changed over time, as well as the different types of genre, because people change with it. As I have previously mentioned, you must know who your audience is before picking the genre you are using.
Genres role in communication helps to distinguish what way we communicate the information we are trying to get across and which genre will be the most effective to do so. Today, the role that communication plays in our day-to-day lives is immense. Within my own lifetime the development of the internet and technology has totally changed the way we communicate. Twenty years ago we didn’t have text messaging or email, and to be completely honest, I probably use those two forms of communication the most. Digital media itself has taken on a whole new form and set of rules that is separate from traditional written language. To reference our upcoming project we have, we are suppose to chose the best method to communicate the definition of a term through print media. This goes along with the role genres play which we are currently discussing, I am going to have to choose the best medium I feel fit to successfully get my message across. Genre helps to form the way in which we communicate ideas. In composition the role genre plays deals with the description of the themes that we are trying to communicate. Knowing the direction in which you would like to take a paper, point or story helps when delegating the creation process and creates a smoother flow. Genre also gives clue to the participants of what direction the piece of work is heading and also what can be expected. Certain genres hold standards and classes that set the tone and in essence create a quality piece of work. With these standards also come limitations. Standards can be seen as limitations towards the creation process. Expectations can sometimes narrow themes, this can sometimes be restrictive when seeking progression in a certain outlet. In class we used several examples of genres to demonstrate the same controversial theme towards Barbie. This was helpful in demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of the genres. Also it was useful to show which was most effective and what audiences its message targeted. These new genres rooted in technology were part of the examples which made it more evident to me than it already was before the assortment of genres there are.
Genre and communication are undoubtedly two devices that need each other in order for either one to function. You can’t communicate without genre, yet without genre you cannot communicate. It is similar to that of rhetorical situation and genre; communication being the situation as it determines what genre one uses to communicate. The form of discourse that is used for communication dictates the genre. If a boss were to tell an employee that they needed to write a speech for the upcoming meeting, the boss communicated what he wanted, specifying the genre to his employee. No matter the form of communication, whether it is speech, text, or picture, there is still a genre that is being used to get the ideas across. Like genre, we use many of the same forms of communication with people on a daily basis that often goes unnoticed (i.e. answering “what” when your name is called. Phrases like lol, lmao, wtf, chill, dude, bro, ect.). We know how to respond in given situations because they are ones that we are familiar with through either our personal past experiences, or the past experiences of others.
Genre seems to find its utmost importance, or constraints in the role of composition. Some argue that genre doesn’t permit the freedoms that writing is said to possess. Instead, it forms a “template” for the way responding to a certain rhetorical situation is supposed to look. In this way, it gives the reader a sort of preconceived view of something before they see it. Genre encourages readers to assume various characteristics of a particular discourse. Accordingly, genre is a necessary evil. Though it seems like it may repress the author, at the same time gives the writing a way to classify and compare it to other works. Without genre, writing would be disorganized and would inherently confuse the reader.
While considering the genre of discourse, the assumptions and expectations that it sets up for the reader are very important in considering it effective. If one were to pick up a literature textbook and open it only to find cooking recipes then clearly it wasn’t an effective text. The expectations the reader had for the book is the reason that they picked it up in the first place. In considering this, it shows how vital genre is not just to the act of composition but to the subconscious of the reader as well.
Devitt ends her article, “Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept,” by integrating text and context, form and content, process and product, reading and writing, social and individual, and situation and constraint into the definition of genre—a sort of unified theory of writing. According to her, the word genre involves everything about writing. Not sure this is a particularly useful construct. However, I’d rather see this open concept of addressing writing and compost ion rather than using narrow categories and definitions of creative work. Genre literally means type of kind. I have never thought of myself as a type or kind.
I leave it up to academicians and bean counters to try and put me and my work into a box retroactively.
The human brain is a semantic structure and needs definitions in order to acquire, process and retrieve information. Societies decide what is right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, valuable or worthless. Most artists work outside this box. However, there is a need, as Vanderberg said, for structure and cohesion and style or it’s not going to be understood by others. (It’s important to note, some artists/writers wait 100 years to be valued and understood by others.)
If the meaning of genre has been expanded to include the medium (form), The each medium, by its very nature imposes limitations. It is up to human ingenuity and creativity to push beyond these limitations, The internet (and the hypertext markup language that drives it) was originally conceived to send table of data from one computer to another. The medium has expanded far beyond that be the ingenious creation of browsers to interpret that basic language into images, widgets, videos and text. However, it is a bear to program in HTML, because it was not designed to be artistic.
Genre: The role of genre in communication is to fill the void where there may be some gaps since genre and situations go hand-in-hand with exception to fictional genre. If it is true that, situations create genre then it is necessary to under that genre can be just as complex as any situation can be. For example when writing from the perspective of others there is no way of knowing rather you are getting factional information, even if you are telling the story form your own point of view the story might still be kind of one-sided. When getting the scoop from only one perspective it more than likely to be bias. When genre gets creates situations then it is also logically inclined to have a discourse attached to it. By placing similar types of genres in the same categories with one another takes some of the complexity off of the word. Even though genre is placed in separate categories as humans being we tend to connect to genre differently. Two or more people may watch the same movie or read the same book or what the situation may be but it is possible that they will all walk away with different viewpoints of it. It does not matter if the genre is real or fictional each individual person will be touch in different ways by different scenarios in the genre. For example even though the piece of genre might be fictional it may depict real life situations that may have occurred in one the participants’ life. Also even if a story is real doesn’t meant that it will be perceived by everyone the same. Sometime an author should let go of any preconceived notions that their audience might have and other times they such think about any preconceived notion that their audience might have; considering both sides of the genre if very helpful to the author especially if they are trying to convey one particular message. For example if the author want to convey a message through satirizing something else the author has to know that not everyone will even get the message that they are trying to get across, but if the author think that the message is important enough to be delivered (rather for profit or public announcement) they have right to do so in whatever fashion or form of genre they choose to do so in. Authors or composers should also be caring when mixing genres like “Scary Movie” for example this is move that is basically reenacted scenes from different movies paced together as one movie. The movie is not supposed to be scary at all, it suppose to be humorous, but if the viewer doesn’t know that are watching reenacted scenes from other movies then it may be a little hard to follow. On the other hand the movie can be considered as boring because there isn’t very much suspense going on in the movie, only suspense is seeing how the movie will portray the characters from other movies. Because situations create genre over time genre has transformed itself from written text into a multitude of things. Genre can be composed through visual effects, audio effects, or a mixture of both through text based media, broadband, or web base media. Genre is separated into different categories for the benefit of the reader or its audience to what type genre they are about to be engaging in.
Genre in communication is very essential. I believe that the role of genre in communication and the role of genre in composing ties in with each other. The keyword that best describes this is: audience. In both communication and composing an individual must first identify their audience. I feel as if you can’t pick out the genre you want to compose in unless you know the audience you are composing to. The composer must also know what they are going to talk about, whose going to be involved and etc. In the article the author refers to genre as a “filing system” or a “library classification system.” In my opinion this was a good way to describe genre to those incompetent individuals like myself. Although this is a broad way to describe genre it helps with the basic understanding. I don’t believe genre sets expectations. I believe that the audience set the expectations for genre. As a society we want things how we want them, and rarely do we accept things just as they are. For example, when someone hears the R & B genre, they think of soft slow music. This is because society or listeners believe that that’s the way R & B should be. Therefore, genre has to fit the audience expectation and not to disappoint. Also, if genre was to set expectations I think it would be to correlate with what is already in place. You can’t mix Rap and R & B, so genre set that expectation that composer will not cross that boundary. That boundary is one of the limitations that genre inscribe. Although it is said that genre is now much more than form I believe that there are still certain rules and guidelines one must obey when trying to stick to a genre. I believe that this is the only limitation when dealing with the new form of genre. Lastly in the article it is said that: “genre allows us to unify form and content, place text within context, balance process and product, and acknowledge the role of the individual and society." This is the accepted definition of genre. This gives one the meaning of “new” genre compared to the “old” genre.
Genre’s role in communication is one that tries to define what kind of communication we are having. It’s more about the details of the communication. Are we reading a comic book or a children’s book? With our current genre definition, we give it a more dynamic way of being, thus allowing us for more space in which we look at how tonally and what kind of piece are we going to create. Going back to “Understanding Comics,” we remember that in a constantly elastic way of looking at things we allow personal interpretation to become an integral part of our compositions. With all this knowledge in mind, we can look at composing and define it with our personal definition. That allows us take that definition and turn it into whatever we like. Say for example the Barbies from last class. All those interpretations of what Barbie is came to the conclusion that those dolls portray an unrealistic vision of what the ideal woman is, yet they differ in what medium we can have more influence. Some did cartoons, other did video, yet all used the advantages and disadvantages of what genres they were using. When it comes to expectations and limitations then, what is the role of genre? Well it seems that it’s a very subject question that has a very subjective answer, because ultimately not everyone has the same beliefs. We can expect to see shocking things from a PETA video, that doesn’t mean that people will be receptive to the commercials many find offensive. Ultimate then, genre is about you, and how our sets of beliefs and thoughts mix together creating a structure that can appreciate or dislike any form of art, including composing.
The role that genre plays in communication may be difficult to ascertain at first. When one thinks of genre, they immediately jump to the thought of it as a “relatively trivial concept, a classification of system deriving from literary criticism that names types of texts according to their forms.” This, however, has more to do with reading than writing, and even less so than oration (something communication is primarily thought of as). However, as the article states, “recent conceptions of genre as a dynamic and semiotic construct illustrate how to unify form and content, place text within context, balance process and product, and acknowledge the role of both the individual and the social. This reconception of genre may even lead us to a unified theory of writing.” By knowing how to compose your work, whether it’s oral or written, one can find it easier to assign a specific genre to it. Not only that, but composing it the way you would want it to be received is also a necessary factor.
ReplyDeleteGenre entails purposes, participants, and themes, so understanding genre entails understanding a rhetorical and semiotic situation and social content. Then genres develop because they respond appropriately to situations that writers encounter repeatedly, and thus with that experience they can better understand the situation and compose their piece to best reflect it. The new conception of genre is that it depends heavily on the intertextuality of discourse, and knowing the genre means knowing what is appropriate subject matter. Appropriate doesn’t necessarily mean “is it kid friendly”, but rather “is it relevant to the subject at hand”. Simultaneously, genre must respond dynamically to human behavior and social changes. Because both are forever evolving, genre too must be constantly reworked to fit with them.
The expectations that genres set is that each has a formula and when one knows the formula, composing in that particular genre is likely to be fairly easily. However, since genre and situation are mutually constructive, what we diagnose as inability to write a particular genre may in fact be an unfamiliarity with the genre’s situation. That is to say, you may not necessarily be able to write a mystery novel just because you’ve read one. A limitation genre presents would be that the knowledge of how to define your audience and purposes would change under a new notion of genre. This is because it would be clear that selecting a genre would automatically narrow the possibilities for audience and purpose. Once again, we return to the mystery novel: your audience would be limited to fans of mystery novels. People who love to read historical texts wouldn’t glance twice at your work. Conversely, wanting to address a particular audience and purpose constrains one’s choice of genre. If you wanted to appeal to people who liked sparkly vampires, you’d be forced to write an absurd and horribly clichéd teen vampire romance novel, and your name would be Stephanie Meyer.
Without genre, the way of communication would lack many skills for readers and writers. Genre puts a type of media into a category to appeal to different audiences. It makes a clearer understanding for what a piece of work can be defined as. In terms of composing a genre, it says “Genres develop, then, because they respond appropriately to situations that writers encounter repeatedly. In principle, that is, writers first respond in fitting ways and hence similarly to recurring situations” (Devitt 576). Genres are made from the people and what is going on in the world. Genres are more flexible today than we were years ago because we compose them based on social influences going on in the world at the moment. It is helpful by giving the writing and reader more interest in a certain subject and more options.
ReplyDeleteGenre gives a lot of expectations by making it the best way to talk about something. It gives us a process to form how we want to get our point out to everyone. For example, when I was younger the newspaper was always delivered to my house every morning for my parents to read. As I got older, the papers stopped coming because of the Internet. Now the newspaper is free online getting information than having to pay someone to kill trees. Getting your idea out to the world is easier with technology growing at high speeds.
Although genres are very good in the aspects of communication, we also have to deal with the limitations. Some genres have a rigid structure which have a certain form and structure you have to follow to fit into it. For example, I couldn’t just write a romantic novel without knowing the sequences of how the structure is. I agree with some limitations because some genres should have a structure to go by. Rules need to be made sometimes, even in our projects that are going to be due next week. A structure guideline needs to be set. Genres develop great communication to an audience that is willing to be pleased and can become successful in that certain subtype.
When I think of genre I tend to think about music. Usually when you hear music you hear different individuals ask about the genre. Is it rap, hip hop, rock , metal or any of the other genres? In communication one should be able to distinguish what genre they are going to use and how it will affect their work. For instance, a speech, a speaker must know how to write the speech, what audience to target and so forth. We as a society also communicate through different text and media. Genre is very important to decide before communicating or even while communicating. Genre can also be brought about depending on the different rhetorical situations.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel that genre plays a very important role in composing. Although I had a hard time understand what genre was throughout the article, I could tell it had something to do with categories. The reason I say this is because in the article it talked about genre being a “filing system.” With that being said, when composing one must take into consideration who the audience is and decide on a genre. Who is the audience? What am I going to talk about? Through what media am I going to display this message? These are some of the questions that should arise when talking about genres and trying to compose a piece. Depending on the audience you choose to compose your work on you will have a certain technique or style. These are all elements of genre, that’s must be taken into consideration.
I don’t really feel that genre sets the expectations. I think that the audience set the expectations for the genre. For example, music of course, listeners believe that hip hop should be upbeat, not too slow, and very catchy. The listeners set the expectations for the artist who will then compose the peace to fit into the genre. Furthermore, as situations changes genre changes, therefore, the expectations are set based on the different situations and not necessarily the genre.
The role genre plays in both communication and composition is perhaps more subtle than obvious, but certainly, is one of value. When information or ideas are expressed, either orally or through the written word, most often a relative genre inherently exists and can be ascribed, given the subject matter at hand. (Am I reading a novel? A poem? A satirical essay? A textbook? Am I hearing a news address? A eulogy? A political speech?...) Establishing genre can in most instances be an open and shut case. However, understanding the function of genre requires a bit more consideration.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I believe the most vital purpose of genre, as related to both communication and composition, is to indicate—broadly speaking—what the form and tone of a particular piece will be. In establishing genre, the individual who is expressing or composing something then has a reference point by which they can effectively assess and revise both the style they elect to convey, and the structure they wish to utilize. As well, the audience of any particular work, whether it is written or spoken, may benefit from genre in that once it is established, so too is the level of interest and engagement they will have in what is being expressed. Of course, genre is both inviting and limiting, to both one who composes, and an audience. For example, while personal travel journals may be published in abundance and garner wide audiences, while blogs about international travel destinations may exist in great numbers and inspire an interchange of ideas and advice, analytical reports about tourism in Macedonia may be far and few between, and are likely to garner minimal readership. Additionally, genre inscribes limitation in that the level of understanding and appreciation that an individual work may incite is often directly related to the cultural and educational backgrounds of the respective audience members.
Similar to the others terms that we have already gone over; genre is a little more complex than originally thought. Genre is closely related to audience since the writer needs to know who their audience is in order to decide on which type of genre fits best. You are not going o write a child’s book and try to market it to college kids since it is not the right audience. This was even seen in the PETA videos the other day which the organization used multiple forms to fit different genres to try and appeal to a wider audience. The Super Bowl ad tried to appeal to mean by being satirical and making it look like a cheesy old porn movie. At the same time, they used a completely different genre to try and appeal to Christians and misuse quotes from the Bible to relay the same message about how eating meat is bad.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar sense, the Barbie images from earlier today did the same thing by using multiple takes on the same basic concept. To sum it up in a nutshell, all the examples said that Barbie was bad for children because she portrayed an unrealistic woman and gave off a negative image. However, they used different mediums to get that message across. One was a video with pictures and a song to relay the message (more for a digitally based audience) while another was just a personal essay with no images (geared towards an older group of people who grew up with less electronics). However, there were still some images which were not geared toward a specific group of people. These images used shock value to embed the idea of Barbie being bad by taking an image and making it eye popping and attention grabbing. The anorexic Barbie was eye opening because it was a play on how Barbie is typically portrayed as a super model, yet she was now being seen as someone with an eating disorder.
This use of the Barbie images and text were forms of new genre since they were much more flexible than would have been accepted even twenty or thirty years ago. Genre as a whole has changed over time, as well as the different types of genre, because people change with it. As I have previously mentioned, you must know who your audience is before picking the genre you are using.
Genres role in communication helps to distinguish what way we communicate the information we are trying to get across and which genre will be the most effective to do so. Today, the role that communication plays in our day-to-day lives is immense. Within my own lifetime the development of the internet and technology has totally changed the way we communicate. Twenty years ago we didn’t have text messaging or email, and to be completely honest, I probably use those two forms of communication the most. Digital media itself has taken on a whole new form and set of rules that is separate from traditional written language. To reference our upcoming project we have, we are suppose to chose the best method to communicate the definition of a term through print media. This goes along with the role genres play which we are currently discussing, I am going to have to choose the best medium I feel fit to successfully get my message across. Genre helps to form the way in which we communicate ideas. In composition the role genre plays deals with the description of the themes that we are trying to communicate. Knowing the direction in which you would like to take a paper, point or story helps when delegating the creation process and creates a smoother flow. Genre also gives clue to the participants of what direction the piece of work is heading and also what can be expected. Certain genres hold standards and classes that set the tone and in essence create a quality piece of work. With these standards also come limitations. Standards can be seen as limitations towards the creation process. Expectations can sometimes narrow themes, this can sometimes be restrictive when seeking progression in a certain outlet. In class we used several examples of genres to demonstrate the same controversial theme towards Barbie. This was helpful in demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of the genres. Also it was useful to show which was most effective and what audiences its message targeted. These new genres rooted in technology were part of the examples which made it more evident to me than it already was before the assortment of genres there are.
ReplyDeleteGenre and communication are undoubtedly two devices that need each other in order for either one to function. You can’t communicate without genre, yet without genre you cannot communicate. It is similar to that of rhetorical situation and genre; communication being the situation as it determines what genre one uses to communicate. The form of discourse that is used for communication dictates the genre. If a boss were to tell an employee that they needed to write a speech for the upcoming meeting, the boss communicated what he wanted, specifying the genre to his employee. No matter the form of communication, whether it is speech, text, or picture, there is still a genre that is being used to get the ideas across. Like genre, we use many of the same forms of communication with people on a daily basis that often goes unnoticed (i.e. answering “what” when your name is called. Phrases like lol, lmao, wtf, chill, dude, bro, ect.). We know how to respond in given situations because they are ones that we are familiar with through either our personal past experiences, or the past experiences of others.
ReplyDeleteGenre seems to find its utmost importance, or constraints in the role of composition. Some argue that genre doesn’t permit the freedoms that writing is said to possess. Instead, it forms a “template” for the way responding to a certain rhetorical situation is supposed to look. In this way, it gives the reader a sort of preconceived view of something before they see it. Genre encourages readers to assume various characteristics of a particular discourse. Accordingly, genre is a necessary evil. Though it seems like it may repress the author, at the same time gives the writing a way to classify and compare it to other works. Without genre, writing would be disorganized and would inherently confuse the reader.
While considering the genre of discourse, the assumptions and expectations that it sets up for the reader are very important in considering it effective. If one were to pick up a literature textbook and open it only to find cooking recipes then clearly it wasn’t an effective text. The expectations the reader had for the book is the reason that they picked it up in the first place. In considering this, it shows how vital genre is not just to the act of composition but to the subconscious of the reader as well.
Devitt ends her article, “Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept,” by integrating text and context, form and content, process and product, reading and writing, social and individual, and situation and constraint into the definition of genre—a sort of unified theory of writing. According to her, the word genre involves everything about writing. Not sure this is a particularly useful construct. However, I’d rather see this open concept of addressing writing and compost ion rather than using narrow categories and definitions of creative work. Genre literally means type of kind. I have never thought of myself as a type or kind.
ReplyDeleteI leave it up to academicians and bean counters to try and put me and my work into a box retroactively.
The human brain is a semantic structure and needs definitions in order to acquire, process and retrieve information. Societies decide what is right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, valuable or worthless. Most artists work outside this box. However, there is a need, as Vanderberg said, for structure and cohesion and style or it’s not going to be understood by others. (It’s important to note, some artists/writers wait 100 years to be valued and understood by others.)
If the meaning of genre has been expanded to include the medium (form), The each medium, by its very nature imposes limitations. It is up to human ingenuity and creativity to push beyond these limitations, The internet (and the hypertext markup language that drives it) was originally conceived to send table of data from one computer to another. The medium has expanded far beyond that be the ingenious creation of browsers to interpret that basic language into images, widgets, videos and text. However, it is a bear to program in HTML, because it was not designed to be artistic.
Genre:
ReplyDeleteThe role of genre in communication is to fill the void where there may be some gaps since genre and situations go hand-in-hand with exception to fictional genre. If it is true that, situations create genre then it is necessary to under that genre can be just as complex as any situation can be. For example when writing from the perspective of others there is no way of knowing rather you are getting factional information, even if you are telling the story form your own point of view the story might still be kind of one-sided. When getting the scoop from only one perspective it more than likely to be bias. When genre gets creates situations then it is also logically inclined to have a discourse attached to it. By placing similar types of genres in the same categories with one another takes some of the complexity off of the word. Even though genre is placed in separate categories as humans being we tend to connect to genre differently. Two or more people may watch the same movie or read the same book or what the situation may be but it is possible that they will all walk away with different viewpoints of it. It does not matter if the genre is real or fictional each individual person will be touch in different ways by different scenarios in the genre. For example even though the piece of genre might be fictional it may depict real life situations that may have occurred in one the participants’ life. Also even if a story is real doesn’t meant that it will be perceived by everyone the same. Sometime an author should let go of any preconceived notions that their audience might have and other times they such think about any preconceived notion that their audience might have; considering both sides of the genre if very helpful to the author especially if they are trying to convey one particular message. For example if the author want to convey a message through satirizing something else the author has to know that not everyone will even get the message that they are trying to get across, but if the author think that the message is important enough to be delivered (rather for profit or public announcement) they have right to do so in whatever fashion or form of genre they choose to do so in. Authors or composers should also be caring when mixing genres like “Scary Movie” for example this is move that is basically reenacted scenes from different movies paced together as one movie. The movie is not supposed to be scary at all, it suppose to be humorous, but if the viewer doesn’t know that are watching reenacted scenes from other movies then it may be a little hard to follow. On the other hand the movie can be considered as boring because there isn’t very much suspense going on in the movie, only suspense is seeing how the movie will portray the characters from other movies. Because situations create genre over time genre has transformed itself from written text into a multitude of things. Genre can be composed through visual effects, audio effects, or a mixture of both through text based media, broadband, or web base media. Genre is separated into different categories for the benefit of the reader or its audience to what type genre they are about to be engaging in.
Genre in communication is very essential. I believe that the role of genre in communication and the role of genre in composing ties in with each other. The keyword that best describes this is: audience. In both communication and composing an individual must first identify their audience. I feel as if you can’t pick out the genre you want to compose in unless you know the audience you are composing to. The composer must also know what they are going to talk about, whose going to be involved and etc. In the article the author refers to genre as a “filing system” or a “library classification system.” In my opinion this was a good way to describe genre to those incompetent individuals like myself. Although this is a broad way to describe genre it helps with the basic understanding. I don’t believe genre sets expectations. I believe that the audience set the expectations for genre. As a society we want things how we want them, and rarely do we accept things just as they are. For example, when someone hears the R & B genre, they think of soft slow music. This is because society or listeners believe that that’s the way R & B should be. Therefore, genre has to fit the audience expectation and not to disappoint. Also, if genre was to set expectations I think it would be to correlate with what is already in place. You can’t mix Rap and R & B, so genre set that expectation that composer will not cross that boundary. That boundary is one of the limitations that genre inscribe. Although it is said that genre is now much more than form I believe that there are still certain rules and guidelines one must obey when trying to stick to a genre. I believe that this is the only limitation when dealing with the new form of genre. Lastly in the article it is said that: “genre allows us to unify form and content, place text within context, balance process and product, and acknowledge the role of the individual and society." This is the accepted definition of genre. This gives one the meaning of “new” genre compared to the “old” genre.
ReplyDeleteGenre’s role in communication is one that tries to define what kind of communication we are having. It’s more about the details of the communication. Are we reading a comic book or a children’s book? With our current genre definition, we give it a more dynamic way of being, thus allowing us for more space in which we look at how tonally and what kind of piece are we going to create. Going back to “Understanding Comics,” we remember that in a constantly elastic way of looking at things we allow personal interpretation to become an integral part of our compositions.
ReplyDeleteWith all this knowledge in mind, we can look at composing and define it with our personal definition. That allows us take that definition and turn it into whatever we like. Say for example the Barbies from last class. All those interpretations of what Barbie is came to the conclusion that those dolls portray an unrealistic vision of what the ideal woman is, yet they differ in what medium we can have more influence. Some did cartoons, other did video, yet all used the advantages and disadvantages of what genres they were using.
When it comes to expectations and limitations then, what is the role of genre? Well it seems that it’s a very subject question that has a very subjective answer, because ultimately not everyone has the same beliefs. We can expect to see shocking things from a PETA video, that doesn’t mean that people will be receptive to the commercials many find offensive.
Ultimate then, genre is about you, and how our sets of beliefs and thoughts mix together creating a structure that can appreciate or dislike any form of art, including composing.