Lab+2

Since the primordial of the human species, people have contrived various classification systems in order to establish order and to essentially gain more of an understanding of their world. The human mind repels chaos and welcomes a more structural and harmonious way of thinking. Therefore, genres are a classification system that serves to organize specific concepts. People feel more at ease knowing that concepts are grouped together according to their similarities. For example, movies with gunshots and explosions go under the “action movie” genre. Movies with spacecrafts and aliens go under the “sci-fi movie” genre. Once these concepts start overlapping, the classification system begins to essentially fall apart since the boundaries between the different genres become blurred. Although this is a very, very basic example of the controversy of genres, it assists in explaining the more complex examples. Digital convergence creates this blurring of genres. Today we can watch movies on TV, TV on the Internet, and use the Internet on our phone. Because of today’s advanced technologies, we see a lot of overlapping of genres. It is difficult to actualize genre categories. For example, the Iphone is a prime example of digital convergence. Users are given the immediate ability to listen to music, surf the web, map locations, play games, calculate simple equations and more. Users can also download applications that allow them to do a million other things. For example, Obama’s application is a combination of things: a social network, a forum and a propaganda strategy. Likewise, the android phone is becoming more and more common today. The phone allows users to download several unique applications that will continue to blur the lines between genres and will consequently lead to people questioning the definition of genre.