Genres of Genres

This week’s readings were a double dose of genre. The first, which addressed the reason genres exist, reads like a school textbook and contained sections which broke down definitions with examples. When identifying genres, understanding the recurring elements in a specific genre is helpful in tackling how to respond to it. The second reading, by Miller, Devitt, and Gallagher was more scholarly in its evaluation of genre and approached the process by creating sub-elements, or genres upon genres, to describe its place in an age of digital media. The reading was considerably denser than the first reading and served as a deep dive into concepts like how genre is multidimensional, multimodal, etc. In looking at how genres can be characterized and comparing them to the social movement sites I frequent each week, I was able to make some observations about how online activism writing can be grouped together into a genre that can serve as a blueprint for others in online activism.

Each of the Pro-Choice sites I have visited contains at least the following areas of interest for people to navigate to when visiting the site:

1) a homepage with quick information about the organization

2) a link to donate or to take action featured prominently on the main page

3) a search function

Most of them also contain further resources like news and blogs related to the cause. I can see the pattern and assume that to qualify as a social online movement, the aforementioned might be required elements. Clearly organizing this pattern is useful to me as one trying to create an online space for social activism.

However, in trying to understand why “genre” as a theory is a thing, I read through the pieces and researched what “Genre Studies” might entail. I admit that much like my time in Political Theory, I found its explanation over-complicated, like in the way we create words to describe something for a which a word already exists. In addition, genre appears to be the study of recurring patterns and content as a means of organizing said patterns and content. To then study the act of evaluating patterns and content amounts to an infinity mirror effect. Genres of genres, so to speak.