Sanchez 1 Angel Sanchez Professor Leslie Wolcott ENC 1102 2 December 2013 Genre Analysis: The Academic Journal

Article (Revised) Regulation of content is a big factor in todays media industry. Not only would it affect the general public, but it would also cause restrictions on what the developers can put into their creative works whether it is film, television, or video games. The genre of the academic journal not only gives intellectual insight towards this concept, but it also presents the issues to a variety of audiences although it can cause some different interpretations between certain groups, both members and non members of the media discourse community; however, it is important to recognize what exactly constitutes a genre and how it affects a discourse community. Many were taught that the term genre solely refers to classifying specific types of work, such as movies, music, books, and video games. This definition does not fully explain what exactly constitutes a genre. Amy Devitt, an English professor for the University of Kansas, has argued in her academic journal article Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept that genre is more of a dynamic concept that is based on content rather than form, instead of a static categorizing tool. In another one of her articles entitled Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities, she discusses how the true definition of genre can have an effect towards the study of a discourse community. She states that genres identify the linguistic ecology of discourse communities (Devitt, Bawarshi, and Reiff 542). Basically, discourse communities use the concept of genre to be able to communicate between members and non-members in order to reach their goals.

Sanchez 2 John Swales sets the stage for the discourse community through his book Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. In it, he describes a discourse community as a center for a set of ideas, but he did stress that it is also sufficiently explicit for others to be able to accept, modify, or reject on the basis of the criteria proposed (Swales 22). He also goes on to describe the sic characteristics of a discourse community, such as A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals (Swales 24). Since I am majoring in Digital Media with the Game Design track, the discourse community that I will be focusing on will be the media discourse community, but more specifically the gaming industry. The major goal of the gaming industry, as well as the media community as a whole, is to have an idea, develop a product based on said idea, and then release the product to the public for their entertainment. A genre for this discourse community is developed, as with how all other genres are developed according to Devitt, because they respond appropriately to situations that writers encounter repeatedly (Devitt 576). The examples I will further discuss are Jason Toccis Seeking Truth in Video Game Ratings: Content Considerations for Media Regulation, Nathaniel Poors When Firms Encourage Copying: Cultural Borrowing as Standard Practice in Game Spaces, and Francesca Carpentiers Media Influence on Youth: Scientific Evidence, Policy Considerations, and the History of Media Self-Regulation. The genre in play would be the academic journal articles that were created in response to, in one way or another, the growing concept of media content regulation through the government intervening in the ESRBs rating process, the difference between content sharing and piracy, and how the various content within the media affect the viewer, mainly young children. An article from an academic journal can be written for a variety of purposes. The majority of them are made to inform the public of certain phenomena going on within a certain

Sanchez 3 discourse community. Both Toccis article and Poors article, being written for the International Journal of Communication, were used to inform the public about different actions that can impact the media industry as well as the general public. Tocci explains how the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) regulates content within video games. He also informs how formal legislation is intervening the industry by proposing the Truth in Video Game Rating Act; this would require every video game to be played in its entirety before being assigned a rating (Tocci 2). Poors article focuses on how companies within the gaming industry strictly prohibit copying of their intellectual propertyYet there are companiesthat sell and promote games in which copying is an encouraged norm (Poor 1). Both articles make the public aware of how certain actions or concepts can affect them or the industry and how it could affect their progress towards achieving their goal: to create products that would entertain the consumer. This third article, however, does not just inform the reader of the situation that is going on; it also tries to convince the reader to understand the authors perspective on said situation. The article is entitled Media Influence on Youth: Scientific Evidence, Policy Considerations, and the History of Media Self-Regulation and is written by Francesca Carpentier for the Journal of Applied Research on Children. She explains how content regulation has been placed on media throughout history as well as convincing people about how negative behaviors of children can be caused by the media. Although they are considered to be academic journal articles, it is still important to understand how and why an academic journal, in general, is a credible source on information. Academic journal articles have to go through a vigorous peer review process before they can be published. This is mostly done to prevent plagiarism and to give credit where credit is due. Not only that, but the reader can find out information about the authors credentials by looking at either the title page or through any footnotes if the article contains them. This would

Sanchez 4 appeal to the concept of ethos towards the reader. Ethos is referred to as the authority or credibility of the author in a work. In the case of the academic journal article, the background information of the articles author would appeal to the reader as ethos; however, ethos is not the only piece of rhetoric that academic journals can appeal towards the reader. Practically every academic journal article contains some form of hard evidence, such as facts or statistics. These appeal to the concept of logos, the logic behind the authors claim, and can be used to strengthen arguments made within the text. In Jason Toccis article, he used specific law codes within the text to establish that certain laws or bills were officially announced or proposed, respectively, rather than mention that the topic only came up during a meeting of some sort. His entire article focuses on how formal legislation is placing official policies towards regulating content on video games. Instead of just mentioning the existence of such laws, he placed in a specific example followed by the billing code within Congress, 'Truth in Video Game Rating Act' (H.R. 5912) (Tocci 2). Not only that, but both Tocci and Poor used in-text citations for their respective articles to properly cite their material. These appeal to logos as well as ethos because the reader can go to their research sources if they want to find more information relating to the topic at hand. Carpentier does not necessarily use in-text citation to support her argument; however, she does use historical information regarding media content control; he mentions facts as early as the formation of the Payne Fund Studies, which examined popular movies in an early attempt to understand what depictions of violencedid to young peoples minds (Carpentier 1), towards the modern day V-chip. These historical facts as well as statistics and law codes are all used to help the reader understand the logic behind the authors claims. Also, as was the case for Toccis article, academic journal articles can contain a large amount of information that the writer might break it apart in sections using headers; these headers may

Sanchez 5 utilize a different font style, bolding, or font size. These basically tell the reader what the following section is going to be about. These are useful for someone if they might not want to use the entire article as research and only want/need a certain topic from that article. Another characteristic that some articles contain is the lack of any complicated diction; in other words, any educated person can read the article and understand the basic concept(s) the articles were trying to express. Although there are a growing number of resources that can provide the general public access to these journals, there are still many scholarly journals that are behind some pay walls to restrict access. Many institutions, such as universities, have some of these resources available for free to students, but for the most part the general public would have some difficulty getting to some articles; although a simple web search through Google or Bing can guide someone through many journal entries from many different journals that come from a large variety of fields. Academic journals, in general, are made to express a change in the status quo. Whether it is to create that change or just to inform the audience about it, the academic journal would give insight on that repeated rhetorical situation. In this case, a sudden change to raise awareness on media content regulation such as formal legislation (Tocci), distinction between copying versus piracy (Poor), and content regulation to protect the youth audience (Carpentier) influenced these authors to write their respective articles which, in turn, could change the rhetorical situation by either strengthening it or create a completely new situation. This cycle continues on between a genre and the rhetorical situation. This is why it is important to understand the correct term for genre as well as understand how it can affect a discourse community as a whole.

Sanchez 6 Works Cited Carpentier, Francesca. "Media Influence on Youth: Scientific Evidence, Policy Considerations, and the History of Media Self-Regulation." Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk. 4.1 (2013): n. page. Web. 26 Sep. 2013. Devitt, Amy, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Reiff. "Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Community."College English. 65.5 (2003): 541-558. Web. 26 Sep. 2013. Devitt, Amy. "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept." College Composition and Communication. 44.4 (1993): 573-586. Web. 26 Sep. 2013. Poor, Nathaniel. "When Firms Encourage Copying: Cultural Borrowing as Standard Practice in Game Spaces."International Journal of Communication. (2012): 689-709. Web. 26 Sep. 2013. Swales, John. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge University Press, 20-33. Web. Tocci, Jason. "Seeking Truth in Video Game Ratings: Content Considerations for Media Regulation."International Journal of Communication. (2008): 561-586. Web. 26 Sep. 2013.