Genre Paradigms

Successful exemplars from genres associated with the ‘popular,’ ‘mass culture,’ or the ‘culture industry’ receive either less attention or a different kind of attention. The first major hurdle for these genre exemplars to overcome is that of being deemed worthy of discussion in the first place. Many genres—from romance novels to dance music to pornographic videos—are only very hesitantly, or indeed never, given any form of regular attention. They only seem to come into focus when politicians, social pedagogues, clerics, commentators, etc., declare them to be ‘dangerous’ for the ‘people’ or the ‘youth.’ Such considerations mostly only function in summary and generalized terms; individual artifacts are cited merely as examples, which must stand in for all other artifacts from the genre.