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Material Genres
The concept of genres has many definitions, but I prefer this one:
A genre is a repeatable but open pattern of communication which is shaped by a combination of expectations held by many people and which may be catered to by others. A communication may simultaneously conform to many genres or different types of genres, such as thematic or functional.
Unfortunately, I can come up with genres that threaten even that definition. The term board games, for instance, is spoken of as a genre, but there's a difference. Board games are dominated by one material characteristic, the board. That differentiates them from card games, war games, and even role-playing games.
Is there such a thing as a material genre, or is this just another example of a functional genre? I've always assumed that a functional genre referred to the rules, but if pictures are interpretable as rhetoric (I'm using the academic interpretation of that word, not the common understanding), then it reasons that a board would be even easier to interpret as such.
A genre is a repeatable but open pattern of communication which is shaped by a combination of expectations held by many people and which may be catered to by others. A communication may simultaneously conform to many genres or different types of genres, such as thematic or functional.
Unfortunately, I can come up with genres that threaten even that definition. The term board games, for instance, is spoken of as a genre, but there's a difference. Board games are dominated by one material characteristic, the board. That differentiates them from card games, war games, and even role-playing games.
Is there such a thing as a material genre, or is this just another example of a functional genre? I've always assumed that a functional genre referred to the rules, but if pictures are interpretable as rhetoric (I'm using the academic interpretation of that word, not the common understanding), then it reasons that a board would be even easier to interpret as such.