How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time?

In previous era’s there has been an observable bias by academics towards what was at the time and occasionally now is referred to as ‘high’ literature. Poetry, prose literature, and stage dramas are classical genres that were often deemed to be superior to modern popular genres. For this reason popular genres were often excluded from academic study, and were not taken seriously in the academic space. Furthermore there existed aspects of popular genres that lead academics to be less favorable towards them. Popular genres often present formulaic narrative outlines that are easy to predict. Many characters in popular genres suffer from being two dimensional and lacking significant growth over the narrative, while also being easily categorised into different character archetypes within that genre. Popular genres as a concept were also new, and many texts came to by way of new technologies and mediums.

As time went on the academic perceptions of popular genres began to change, and popular genres began to to be included in academic literature programs. There are two main reasons for this change, firstly because of a steady increase in popularity for genre fiction, and secondly because of a more favorable reevaluation of popular genres in the academic space. Many popular genre works are accessed via new technologies and mediums, such as TV, film, and the internet, and with televisions still being a normal household item, and many films and series being available online. Popular genres have taken over as the more affordable and accessible means of entertainment. As these new technologies become more normalised and used by more people, this also increases the popularity of popular genres. There are also several factors of popular genres that made them more appealing in the academic space. Popular genres are newer then classical genres, and as a result often better reflect modern society as it is today. Popular genres also have qualities that literary classics lack, such as the implementation of both text and imagery in ways that enhance the work. Lastly there were several ways in which the notion that ‘high literature’ being superior to popular genre fiction was deconstructed. It became apparent that the perception of what was ‘high’ and ‘low’ literature was not only subjective, but were centered around the tastes of privileged and elite groups. Authorial intentions for texts from both classical and popular genres were also often indistinguishable, with the intentions for texts often being more than just for basic entertainment.

What might the value be of studying them?

Popular genre fiction often does not exist within the realm of realism. Locations, languages, creatures, races, items, and technology that do not exist in our reality exist within popular genre texts, and these ideas can have real world practical and cultural applications. Science fiction concepts like hoverboards from back to the future or lightsabers from star wars now have real world prototypes, and popular culture is heavily influenced by popular genre texts making it worthy of studying what other ideas could be implemented in the real world from popular genres. As mentioned above popular genre fiction is often a reflection of the society it was produced from, therefore studying popular genre texts can inform on aspects of societies in different locations and time periods. Popular genres have a larger consumer base then classical genres in modern day, by studying popular genres it could be found out why this is the case. 

Mounfort, P (auth). (2020). ENGL602 popular genres. Retrieved from

https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_96250_1&content_id=_5273101_1&mode=reset

How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time?

As time goes on society changes, fashion changes, music changes, values and opinions change and so does genres and popular genres. As we grow and develop ideas in society so do the genres that are created and viewed. Academically, a change in popular genres could be the relevance of genres used in academia during the time they are being received. Another way popular genre can be received academically is when someone takes offense to what is being portrayed within the genres, this can include politics and social issues that society is confronting depending on the year and time the genre becomes popular.

What might the value of studying them?

Learning is always valuable, Popular genres opens up new worlds and ideas for people to learn and create from, popular genres is so vast in its amount of definitions that it allows everyone to be able to enjoy some part of it regardless, if it is literature, film, games or media. Studying popular genres allows people to gain knowledge from topics that we can understand and find interesting as so many ideas and opinions pass through the genres. Through popular genres we can gain new ways to look at the world and new influences that can help better our work by enabling us to understand more about how the world around us is shaped by views and outlooks as well as being able to understand create flow and ideas.

Popular genres can also be good for our societies because we use old and new genres to determine how we live and change our views. We can grow as a community by learning from mistakes shown within popular genres studying them can give us insight on ways we can process and overcome situations before they happen and can plan to be able to change situations that need to be fixed.

Please respond to both of these questions (using references) in a post tagged under this page.

How has the academic reception of popular genres changes over time?

Early literature like plays, poems, and ballads, which were popularized and consumed by the wealthy and predominantly upper class, as they had disposable income and free time to watch and read these forms of media. This form of literature became known as “High Literature”, being favoured by academics, while other forms of media weren’t respected and given the title, “Low literature”. As stories in the format of the popular genre began to come out they weren’t well-received by critics as they weren’t “High Literature”.

Popular culture is defined as “…generally recognized as the vernacular or people’s culture that predominates in a society at a point in time… As the ‘culture of the people’, popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also informed by the mass media.”. It has come a long way from its first iteration as “Pulp Science Fiction” (Delaney, 2007). These books were mass-produced, allowing them to reach a wider audience, and as technology advanced, stories that were once in books were now in comics, with visuals to add to the reader’s enjoyment. And as technology developed further, popular genres would adapt its materials to fit the platform, for example, Radio,  Films, Television, and recently with the advent of the internet, streaming platforms have made popular shows and films easily accessible to viewers with streaming sites and applications. This is only possible due to the fact that phones and computers have become cheaper and more powerful over the years. Popular genres seem to correlate and change along with the technology available at the time, and the fact that films and television are more widely available means reception to them will be overall more positive, as shows and film receive more audience and critical acclaim. This is supported as Pop-culture began after the events of ww2, as a larger number of people owned a TV, allowing for shows to develop cult-like followings, “With the post-World War II economic boom, however, all this changed. By 1955, half of all American homes had a television. Various types of programs were broadcast on the handful of major networks: situation comedies, variety programs, game shows, soap operas, talk shows, medical dramas, adventure series, cartoons, and police procedurals.”(Khan Academy)

An example of this would be with the show, “Arrested Development”, originally released in 2003 on NBC it never had much of viewership despite its critical success and was cancelled after 3 seasons, however, after Netflix had added the show to its site, it gained a wider audience, and it led to 2 more seasons being produced nearly 7 years after its initial cancellation.

What might the value be of studying them?

The study of Popular Genres can show societal and cultural advancements, as the stories they tell usually reflect on current political and societal issues, making these stories preserve the period they were written in. Shows like Star Trek and films like Blade Runner are set in the distant future, but tackle real-world issues like racism, class system, and the effects of what colonialism can do to entire civilizations. Science fiction, in particular, is well known to use thinly veiled allegories to speak on hot button issues in order to reach a wider audience that would maybe avoid such topics, like robots in Star Wars being an analogy for slavery, and the oppressed, where they have autonomy and display sentience, but are restricted to labour positions and are sacrificed without a second thought. Studying popular genres packages these important messages into digestible stories, so people especially children can interpret them easier. 

References

Delaney, T. (2007). Pop Culture: An Overview. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://philosophynow.org/issues/64/Pop_Culture_An_Overview

Popular culture and mass media in the 1950s (article). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/popular-culture-and-mass-media-cnx

How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time?

Popular genres also known as mass literature was an ignored literature that refers to a wide range of new media. Some of these include anime, manga, adventure, fantasy and science fiction. Pop genres uses formulaic plot structures, where the characters face difficulties and have to overcome obstacles that result in a victorious and predictable ending. Pop genres also comprises of two dimensional characters that don’t fit into the classic literature known characters. It is also known that pop genres are multi modal meaning that they make use of visual and audio elements as well. Thankfully, this has contributed to technological development and the expansion in new media.

Popular genres was not recognized as pure literature until much later in time due to the classical literature like Shakespeare everyone was used to during the earlier time period. However, literature has changed over time, specifically with the evolvement of technology this has incredibly helped popular genres be further exposed throughout the media on various mediums such as comics, film, short stories and novels etc. helping receive the acknowledgement it should. Thankfully, due to the increasing popularity of popular genres, academics realized that the popular genre literature was equally important and therefore needed to be shared, studied and spoken about. Thus, popular genres have been included in academic papers and are now studied in universities with academic papers and curriculums providing students with the rich history of its development. This has been a huge development for multi-media, new media and production companies that can create and produce the new kinds of literature that all audiences are able to read and watch today.

1. What might the value be of studying them?

The value of studying popular genres is quite hard to define, just like how it is hard to define popular genres in one sentence. It’s important because it opens an entire new world to literature and to a new audience as well. There are new fantasies, new creative ideas, imaginary worlds and realms that are different and can be appreciated by different people. It gives students the opportunity to learn about the endless imagination authors have and produces art through literature that should also be acknowledged for its content differences. Modern day society has changed, technology has changed, time has changed therefore it is only normal that literature changes to. This proves that there’s not only one way to writing literature, and that the creativity of new ideas, themes, concepts, relationships and issues popular genres includes can be written in many forms. Popular genres record the changing of culture and society and distributes it through its variety of mediums to share with audiences. To me, valuing popular genres, means to value creativity and imagination through literature.

How has the academic reception of popular genres changes over time?

There are two main types of genres, ‘high’ (classical) and ‘low’ (popular) genres. According to the lecture content, poetry, prose literature and drama refer to ‘high’ taste genres and fantasy fiction, comics, manga and science fiction refer to ‘low’ taste genres. However, opinion changed as to exclude some genres based on ‘taste’ is a privilege for some certain groups of culture. Secondly, literature genres should not be marginalized if only due to they are new. Thirdly, scholar asserts that popular genres may bring more society knowledge to people than those ‘classical’ literature. Fourthly, contemporary genres have several qualities that conventional literature lacks. Fifthly, producers of contemporary literature usually expect more achievements for their works. Finally, contemporary genres bring pleasure feelings to their readers and thus readers consider they are ‘high’ literature as they are popular.   

What might the value be of studying them?

The first value to study the popular genres is that to know and explore this dynamic market due to it has a large number of audiences (Wegrodzka, 2018). Furthermore, the author states that some particular genres and their authors come from various perspectives and interpretations. Thus, people can learn and understand different values. More importantly, The Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d., as cited in Wegrodzka, 2018) states that the boundaries between high literature and popular literature are murky. Therefore, scholars should not marginalize particular types of literature and cultures. Moreover, study popular genres is a vital way to assist scholars and people to inquire into new categories of various literature and to explore how genres evolve. For instance, the ‘New adult’ (NA) fiction was a new category that emerged in 2009 and the definition of NA has continuously evolved with people’s updated perception (McAlister, 2018).

References

McAlister, J. (2018). Defining and redefining popular genres: The evolution of ‘New adult’ fiction. Australian Literary Studies. https://doi.org/10.20314/als.0fd566d109

Wegrodzka, J. (2018). Popular Genres and Their Uses in Fiction (Transatlantic Studies in British and North American Culture) (New ed.). Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften.

1. How has the academic reception of popular genres changes over time?
2. What might the value be of studying them?

As for the term ‘genre fiction’, many have pointed out problems for a long time. However, there are still no substitutes and inertial use. Genre fiction refers to a popular novel written with certain rules such as romance novel, mystery novel, martial arts novel, fantasy novel, and science fiction. Originally referred to as romance genre, mystery genre, etc., they were collectively referred to as genre fiction, but it is not known precisely when it began. It is sometimes called a subculture novel or a subgenre. Sometimes it is also used as genre fiction, but it does not mean much to write it as genre literature, as it is almost as if there is no literary form other than a novel. However, genre poetry or genre essay cannot exist, but genre criticism can exist, so it can be called genre literature in a broad sense. As it belongs to a field of popular fiction, there is a perception that it is inferior to the novels called full-scale literature or pure literature. This recognition comes from the side that holds the literary power and is spread throughout the pure literature and in the media. Although it is completely separated from the choice of the public to enjoy literature, this recognition inevitably leads to a tendency to lower genre fiction throughout society. Those who have grasped the existing literary power think of genre fiction as an enemy who still steals the pie in their domain. However, they don’t seem to have the idea of ​​being a colleague to think about the future of publishing together. This is the way to go through with changing perceptions of society as a whole. It may be difficult to take the first step in such a problem until we abandon the old-fashioned feelings that the public enjoys and considers giving pleasure to be sinful, solemnity, and agony.

There is no superiority between genres in literature. It is just that there are good and bad works. And if you read it, everyone knows. Every distinction and discrimination is only a system of knowledge created by discourses. There are many people who have gone out as advanced readers through genre fiction, and there are many examples of becoming famous writers. Your thoughts grow as large as your thoughts, and as long as your thoughts are open, you can accept them. Is it all up to you to think about it?

Moreover, genre fiction, which shows off its more significant influence in the era of cultural industry, is at the root of the discovery of cultural archetypes of each nation and strategies for content creation. Also, the solid foundation of the cultural industry is being combined with various cultural industries such as video and music, thereby maximizing its marketability and helping to secure competitiveness. Shortly, world culture icons will flow in the form of a combination of cultural industries such as video, music, and games, and genre fiction is advantageous in bringing out commerciality as one of the cultural industries. In other words, the study of genre fiction will become an increasingly important keyword in the cultural industry in the future. Therefore, it is more important than anything else to have marketability and competitiveness. In particular, since genre fiction is an essential new growth engine of high added value, strategic research is needed.

Reference

The 17 Most Popular Genres In Fiction – And Why They Matter. (2016, January 15). Retrieved July 30, 2020, from https://www.writerswrite.co.za/the-17-most-popular-genres-in-fiction-and-why-they-matter/

Herold. (2019, January 30). Book Publishing Market Overview for Authors – Statistics & Facts. Retrieved July 30, 2020, from https://bookadreport.com/book-market-overview-authors-statistics-facts/

Tale Foundry. (2016). Are Movies Getting Dumber? — “Genre Fiction vs. Literary Fiction”. https://www. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVCtWZSt58w

Mountfort, P. (2020). AUT Blackboard. Popular Genres ENGL602. Powerpoint Week 1. Retrieved from https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_96250_1&content_id=_5273101_1&mode=reset  

1. How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time?

Literature was always a privileged male’s field by western standards, anything not by them was less than. As an example, R. M. Ballantyne published ‘The Coral Island’ in 1857, the novel watches three boys who survived a shipwreck and miraculously find their way home. A century later, William Golding turned to his wife, Ann, and said “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if I wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave?” (Golding, n.d.) Now, ‘Lord of the Flies’ has always been praised on the way Golding depicted ‘human nature’- it is its biggest selling point- however, critics, lecturers and the like, love to ignore the fact that ‘Lord of the Flies’ only showcases the nature of middle class white boys.

This has been a very convoluted way of saying that literature has now been reclaimed from rich men, and with doing so has expanded storytelling to new heights.

1. What might the value be of studying them?

Stories are told in all kinds of ways, with their own themes, context and message; sweeping them under the rug because they are ‘childish’ or foreign is simply ignorant. There have been great stories told outside of high literature that- even today- hold significance. Expanding your readings/research throughout different media develops your thinking, and can enlighten your ways of viewing certain topics. 

References:

Carey, J. (2009). William Golding: The Man who Wrote Lord of the Flies. London, England: Faber & Faber.

1. How has the academic reception of popular genres changes over time?
2. What might the value be of studying them?

1. The academic reception of popular genres has slowly changed over the years. Matthew Schneider-Mayorson; a scholar of environmental studies whose research combines sociology, media studies, and literary criticism, states that “Popular fiction as a general object of study has rarely been explored, in part because it is often subsumed under the umbrella of popular culture. This is a mistake: just as film, and television have developed their own approaches that reflect the unique social, cultural, political and industrial dimensions of each medium, so popular fiction should occupy its own critical space.” (Schndeider-Mayorson, 2010). Schneider states that in the past, popular genres/fiction fell into the category of popular culture thus deemed ‘unworthy’ in an analyitcal point of view when it comes to literary. The literary analysts of that time saw popular genre works (such as comics, sci-fi and fantasy) to not be considered as ‘serious’ or ‘high’ literature, thus meant that it was not worth studying its own unique intricasies. Nowadays, we see popular genres to be included in various literature courses and have their own papers alongside ‘high’ literary texts (e.g. this course).
   
2. I personally think that there is value in studying this ‘low’ form of literature. The multi-modal and contemporary nature of popular genres allows us to gain insight through various modes into the thought process of the artist and (more often than not) the greater public. Taking Harge’s Tintin: in the Congo for example. Nowadays we view Harge’s representation of the African to be highly stereotyped and racist, drawing them with little facial features, big lips with their dialogue consisting of broken English and stereotypical afro-voodoo language. However at the time of release (1930), the world was a very different place. This was the west’s view of Africa due to ignorance.

Schneider-Mayerson, M. (2010). Popular Fiction Studies: The Advantages of a New Field. Studies in Popular Culture, 33(1), 21-35. Retrieved August 6, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23416317

Question: How has the academic reception of popular genres changed over time and what might the value be of studying them? 

Popular genres have consistently been rejected from the culturally accepted literary canon. Literary forms such as poetry, ‘high’ prose literature, and drama were considered the top classical genres and still hold a high status in today’s society. Genres such as science-fiction, fantasy, and comics are typically not considered as a serious work of literature. Popular genres have undergone many criticisms, some being that they often use formulaic plot structures, with an often predictable resolution to the complication at hand. Second being that characters are often criticised for being two dimensional or ‘flat’, and undergo little if any character development. Thirdly, popular genres make frequent use of visual or audio elements to bring their stories alive. Fourthly, popular genres are often recently produced due to their use of technology. Lastly, popular genres are often set in imaginary worlds, and therefore do not follow the guidelines of realism (Mountfort, 2020). However, according to writers such as Kathleen Gregory Klein “since canonical authors are generally male, conservative critics have misunderstood entire genres through their biased choices of representative texts” (Schneider-Mayerson, 2010, pp. 27–28).    

Despite these criticisms there is value in studying popular genres. Although popular genres may have a tendency to be new that gives them power. They keep updated with current issues of its time where older classics will never be able too. They often bring about and acknowledge issues whether those be around mental health, politics, or economics that are relevant to their audience. Often when one reads a classic like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë or Emma by Jane Austen which both are beautifully written books and are enjoyable in my opinion, but both are rather outdated. They are often wrought with sexism and issues that no longer pertain to present day society. Furthermore, classics often use language that is richly dense and often hard to follow unless you are a good reader. This can be really off putting for people who are either not strong readers or may have dyslexia or other issues that cause complications in reading. The use of audio or visual elements can initiate a whole new group of readers, and that in a world that is being taken over by technology can only be positive.  

If we look at the prominent issue of mental health in our society at the moment we can see that there are many comics that are being developed to help children or teenagers go through that hard adjustment period. There is this wonderful series written by Raina Telgemeier, each comic focuses on either a typical issue for example, self-consciousness around having braces, or experiencing and learning about anxiety for the first time. These comics are more inviting to children and teenagers than a non-fiction chapter book about puberty may be, and it could help them feel less isolated and afraid. 

These examples can be further continued on, not only do popular genres bring around fantasy, escapism, terror and adventure, but they encapsulate and emphasize contemporary issues and further educate their audiences in doing so.  

References

Mountfort, P. (2020). ENGL602 Popular Genres: Introduction [PowerPoint Slides]. Blackboard. https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/ 

Schneider-Mayerson, M. (2010). Popular fiction studies: The advantages of a new field. Studies in Popular Culture, 33(1), 21–35.   

Storytelling has always existed at the core of human culture and society. A recent study of a Filipino hunter-gatherer tribe; the Agta, discovered that even in this pre-agricultural community, stories were being used to encourage concepts of cooperation, compromise and gender equality (Young, 2017). Such findings, coupled with the existence of cultural sites like the Chauvet caves, suggest that storytelling has, since the dawn of human civilization, informed and enforced cultural ideals, traditions and material realities. It is bizarre then, that for much of western civilization, the majority of the academic world has regarded some of the most popular and widespread forms of storytelling as lacking analytical value. For much of modern history popular genres and popular literatures were derided by academia as being low culture – trope filled texts designed to be easily consumable and marketable opposed to challenging and ideologically complex. As a result, literary discussion and criticism was predominantly directed at more traditional, exclusive and high-culture literary fiction, with popular fiction rarely analysed. On the rare occurrences that literary fiction and mass media was discussed in academic circles, it was often used to highlight the supposed degradation of modern society, or analysed through the lens of propaganda and persuasion (Bates and Ferri, 2010).

Schneider-Mayerson (2010) in ‘Popular Fiction Studies: The Advantages of a New Field’ chronicles the steady increase of popular genres’ legitimacy within academic discourse. This shift in attitude was supposedly spearheaded by the advent of the new left and second-wave feminism during the early eighties, both focusing upon the dismantling of embedded hierarchies, ideological and physical. The distinction between elite and low culture was one such hierarchy that faced significant scrutiny, being considered an arbitrary and classist tool which acted to exclude the working class from cultural and historical narratives (Schneider-Mayerson, 2010). Many new age academics from this period rightly pointed out that popular genres were just as, if not more influential and reflective of modern society than their high culture counterparts, being significantly more socially pervasive than literary fiction.  An early example of this increased academic interest in popular genres was feminist academics’ criticism of popular romances as frequently passivizing women and characterising them as lacking romantic agency (Schneider-Mayerson, 2010). From here the field blossomed, and the study of popular genres has become increasingly mainstream within cultural and literary academia, although the academic bias towards literary fiction no doubt remains at the core of many literary studies.

The elevation of popular genres in academia is an important step in understanding human society and culture. As stated above, storytelling, especially that which is highly propagated within a society, reflects upon said society as a whole via the process of its creation and audience’s reception to the text. Stories have the ability to shape how we understand the world, and popular narratives in many ways can be considered a modernised version of myth and religion. In this regard, it is important to understand the messages communicated within these texts. Improved analysis and understanding has aided in the deconstruction of cultural movements, as well as contributed to the growing trend of problematic ideas and tropes being properly acknowledged and criticised in order to reduce their impact. By taking emphasis away from culturally-elite literature, voices from marginalised authors traditionally excluded from cultural canon have started to be given a place of greater importance in academic and cultural discourse. This elevation of marginalised voice has likely been invaluable in educating the wider public on issues faced by minority demographics such as the POC and queer communities.

On a smaller scale, this developing cultural awareness of popular genres has allowed authors and creators to experiment with the conventions and limitations of various genres, testing limits and exploring new thematic and narrative avenues. Thematically rich genre-fiction has come to hold a place of cultural importance similar to the position once held exclusively by literary fiction, facilitating a blurring of lines between genres and the concepts which they can engage with (Rothman, 2014). While still growing, the study of popular genres has already provided invaluable insight into the constantly shifting cultural and social norms of global society, and has rightfully acknowledged the value of such texts in shaping and reflecting our world.

References

Bates, S., & Ferri, A. (2010). What’s Entertainment? Notes Toward a Definition. Studies in Popular Culture, 33(1), 1-20. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/stable/23416316?seq=13#metadata_info_tab_contents

Schneider-Mayerson, M. (2010). Popular Fiction Studies: The Advantages of a New Field. Studies in Popular Culture, 33(1), 21-35. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23416317?seq=7#metadata_info_tab_contents

Young, E. (2017). The Desirability of Storytellers. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/the-origins-of-storytelling/547502/

Rothman, J. (2014). A Better Way to Think About the Genre Debate. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/better-way-think-genre-debate