Journal 4

While creating texts, genre is largely influenced by many things.  A big one is audience.  Whoever the audience that the creator is trying to reach is, the genre will be tailored to them.  According to Wysocki, when building a text, the author's goal is to "attracts a desired audience, is understandable to that audience, and moves it toward the ends desired by the composer."  For example, when trying to reach an audience of young people, social media is a great option.  On the other hand, trying to reach an older audience might be harder to do with social media.  Perhaps a TV commercial would be more suiting.  Composers should look at organization of the text and the mood it will create in the audience.  An effective genre is carefully tailored very specifically.  Devitt's article highlights this especially when he refers to a genre as a pattern.  The small component that create a large genre are just as important as the big picture.  I like to think of it as a completed puzzle-- it does not have the right effect until each piece is carefully placed down.  One element of the genre cannot stand alone, it must rely on other elements to complete it.  Genre works in a way that it creates expectations.  When you learn what certain audiences have come to expect of specific genres through past experiences, you can learn how your genre will play a role in your life.  I thought about this a lot when reading Miller and Shepherd's article.  When I open up a blog written by someone else, I immediately think it's going to be very personal.  A blog containing personal facts and opinions is a genre convention I have learned in my mind since I can remember first entering the world of the internet.  If I ever see a blog that would defy these conventions, it surely would not have the right effect on me.  When reading texts, the role of genre is less obvious.  We usually don't think about how a genre affects us in a certain way, we just subconsciously absorb the information, letting it make its effect on us.  In regards to the circulation process, it is important to make your audience immediately feel that your text is worth spending time to read.  Distribution is a careful process that later goes on to affect how well it will circulate.