Lab+2

Lab 2 Submission

New genres are created to support the communication of ideas and information in socially and cognitively compatible forms. Essentially genres serve individuals with particular preferences in music or novels for instance by providing a form that is stable - consistently uses recognizable convention elements or rules throughout its creation in order for users to be able to engage with the form in a manner they are familiar with. The definition of genre is so controversial because it refers to highly conventional forms that are instantly conforming to certain conventions. Such a term does not seem to be so applicable to the formation of digital genres because as mentioned in the case study by Dillon and Gushrowski users do not seem to perceive a sense of consistent forms or rules in the information space. The lack of genre conventions in the digital world can be a potentially significant source of user difficulty. This form of new media is considered to be so dramatically different and advanced that when it attempts to adopt the genre conventions from the paper world for instance it fails to offer and equivalent affordance and underutilizes the power of the new medium to provide innovative information structures to users.