Page 22 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

PROCESS

Significantly, the Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club Foundation’s program only
offered these scholarships to students in towns where it operated stores
and distribution centers—offering a subtle inducement for the young
audience to welcome Wal-Mart stores to their communities.
Occasionally, genres are designed to fulfill several competing functions,
which can actually undermine each function. As an example, TV journal-
ism was originally established as a public service. But in order to remain
economically competitive, broadcast journalists have been pressured to
present information in an entertaining fashion. However, these information
and entertainment functions may conflict with one another. Thus while
some information is complex and difficult (if not tedious) to understand,
journalists often feel compelled to dress up their reports, which alters the
content in the process. And increasingly, TV news presents entertainment
as news, so that Michael Jackson’s legal troubles and Jennifer Lopez’s
love life have become the fodder of news broadcasts. In 2004, the ABC
news magazine 20/20 featured a story about adoption, entitled “Be My
Baby,” that contained the formulaic elements of a reality show. The news
magazine program followed a sixteen-year-old mother from Ohio as she
selected among the five couples vying to raise her baby. Co-anchors John
Stossel and Barbara Walters promoted the hour-long news segment as a
reality show. Stossel declared, “Barbara will bring you what might be
called the ultimate reality show. As you watch, a pregnant teenager will
decide which of five couples gets her baby.” Walters added, “We were
joking about the fact that it’s like ‘The Bachelor’ or ‘The Bachelorette’:
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you are in or out tonight.”
Unfortunately, this effort of the news magazine to capitalize on the
popularity of reality shows undermined the legitimate news value of the
story.

Other Functions of Genres

As mentioned earlier, two of the primary functions of popular genres are
entertainment and information. In addition, genres may fulfill a range
of other functions.
Education. Genres serve as a vast reservoir of knowledge. Print and
broadcast journalism convey information to the public about daily events.
Documentaries expose audiences to a range of subjects in depth, includ-
ing history, science, and the arts.
In some countries, popular genres have emerged as a primary vehicle

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