journal 4

Looking at the three readings, we can see that genre is important to the creation and preservation of certain modes of text because certain audiences will be drawn to certain types of genres, whether it be because of form, content, et cetera. Genres help audiences express themselves in their own unique and particular way, and what an audience finds interesting at any given point in time factors into the types of genres that will come about, and the content that will be created in and for those genres. Looking at the blog example again, we can see that the weblog genre spiked a few years ago; people were writing on blogs, there were books published about blogging and how to create a successful blog, there were even television shows revolving around the theme of blogging. This is a genre that was hugely popular, for which content was created, but has since declined in popularity in favor of other genres (such as social media). Just like the Devitt post, we can see how over time genres can ebb and flow, and one genre can morph into another as audiences' interests change and new genres form. This can impact the choices people make when creating content, because they don't want to create content for a genre that isn't going to attract a large audience or a lot of attention. We want to think about the audience we want to reach when we're writing or creating, and what genre that audience is in factors into the type of content that we are going to create. Genre choice impacts circulation because a genre that is too obscure, or is outdated, or basically isn't popular with a large audience will not have content circulating within it. Nowadays, the blogosphere is so outdated due to time (blogs were crazy popular ten years ago) and the oversaturation of everyone and their mother creating their own blog, that it's almost impossible to make your content stand out enough to reach an audience. Whereas it is (marginally) more feasible to reach an audience on a social media platform such as twitter, because it is still popular enough to have a large, active audience.