Contemporary Short-form Genres in Weekly Print Media

Abstract

The nature of journalistic genres evolve as they are exposed to various cultural, social, political and technological changes and developments. Today, the influence of the Internet and the emergence of new media have a significant impact on the development of new trends in contemporary classical print media. This study examines the range of current genre forms used by Slovak weeklies focusing on political and current affairs. The analysis is based on extensive research which has led us to define 16 new genres which can be categorized into three groups – long-form, short-form and lifestyle. The results of this research are presented in detail only for the short-form texts, and within this group we have identified four new specific genres: weekly news coverage, news update, diary and testimony. The basis of our classification is the established genre-constituting criteria (topic, function, form, composition and language). The study reaches three key findings: (1) the tendency of current genres towards increased levels of subjectivity (the so-called ‘blog phenomenon’); (2) the dependence of specific forms within the genre model upon the positioning of a periodical on the decency/tabloidism scale (the continuum between the extremes of respected and tabloid periodicals, and hence between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ form genres); and (3) the converging development of different genres (texts converge in terms of language, composition and form, while nonetheless keeping their key discerning criteria – function and topic – intact).