GenreA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWTh is suggests that the boundaries of genre are
elastic but have a natural tendency to return to
the norm. Referring to the genre of TV sitcoms,
Mills believes that traditional, conventional or
basic formats will continue to appeal to writers,
producers and audiences alike.
Online communication has seen the creation
of a number of genres; among these are
e-mailing, personal websites, blogs and online
newspapers – their forms and purposes adapted
and modified by users, according to techno-
logical availability and the possibilities and
requirements of social contexts. Online genres
are essentially dynamic; they are interactive and
participative and very often operate as alterna-
tives to traditional, media-dominated genres
(see web or online drama).
Leah A. Lievrouw in Alternative and Activist
New Media (Polity Press, 2011) cites a number
of such alternative online genres. (1) Culture
jamming. This ‘critiques popular/mainstream
culture, particularly corporate capitalism,
commercialism and consumerism. Here media
artists and activists appropriate and “repurpose”
elements from popular culture to make new
works with an ironic or subversive point – put
another way, culture jamming “mines” main-
stream culture to critique it’. Such jamming
invites or provokes ‘reverse jamming’, where
‘radical or oppositional messages and styles are
reappropriated ... by mainstream marketers to
give their products a cool, countercutural, or
anti-establishment image’.
(2) Hacktivism where skilled users – some-
times referred to as ‘outlaws’, but largely with
ethical intent – seek to expose corporate wrong-
doing (see hacker, hacktivist; wikileaks).
This genre also includes ‘the development of
systems that elude or sabotage state or commer-
cial surveillance and censorship, encrypt data
and communications, or disable digital rights
management or copy protection schemes, in
the name of preserving users’ privacy, govern-
ment or corporate accountability, or freedom of
information’.
(3) Participatory journalism takes the form of
‘web-based alternative, radical or critical news
outlets and services that adopt the practices and
philosophy of public, civic, citizen, participatory
or “open source” journalism to provide alterna-
tives to mainstream news and opinion’. (4) Medi-
ated mobilization ‘takes advantage of web-based
social software tools like social network sites,
personal blogs ... to engage in live and mediated
collective action’.
(4) Commons knowledge, writes Lievrouwin many diff erent contexts. See report-talk,
rapport-talk.
▶Mary Crawford, Talking Difference: On Gender
and Language (Sage, 1995); Jennifer Coates, Women,
Men and Language (Pearson Education, 2004); Janet
Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff, The Handbook of
Language and Gender (Blackwell, 2006).
Gender signals According to Desmond Morris,
an important feature of our non-verbal behav-
iour is that it can transmit ‘gender signals’. In
People Watching (Vintage, 2002) Morris argues
that such signals are prevalent in social interac-
tion and provide ‘clues that enable us to identify
an individual as either male or female’, helping
to confi rm gender identities. Morris views many
of these signals as ‘invented’ rather than natural
and thus as cultural markers of gender that can
vary across time and cultures, as can be seen in
styles of male and female dress, for example.
Genre Term deriving from the French, meaning
type or classification. In literature the major
classic genres were epic, tragedy, lyric, comedy
and satire, eventually to be followed by the
novel and short story. Genres, working at least
approximately to basic ground rules of form and
style, are categories to be found in all modes
of artistic expression. In fi lms there are genres
of the western, gangster movies, film noir,
science fi ction, romantic comedy, horror, disas-
ter, costume drama, etc. In television there
are sitcoms, soaps, crime dramas and ‘reality’
programmes (see reality tv).
Genres are rarely discrete or singular entities.
Th ey are subject to infl uence by other genres,
and are often a mixture of genre elements.
Indeed part of the pleasure audiences derive
from genre texts is their inventiveness, the way
the codes of diff erent genres have been know-
ingly manipulated, sometimes to satirical eff ect.
In short, what attracts and fascinates is their
intertextuality. Nick Lacey in Narrative and
Genre: Key Concepts in Media Studies (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2000) off ers a useful guide to the
analysis of media genres, listing six key aspects:
setting, characters, narrative, iconography, style
and stars.
Writing in Acts of Literature (Routledge, 1992),
French philosopher Jacques Derrida is of the
opinion that there is ‘no genreless text’; thus the
way is open to classify TV news, party political
broadcasts, weather reports, quiz shows, chat
shows and consumer programmes as genres.
In The Sitcom (Edinburgh University Press,
2010), Brett Mills argues that ‘the more genres
develop, the more they stay the same’ ( a good
question for a media studies essay, perhaps).